


The Guardian

by Jules_In_Neverland



Category: Cormoran Strike Series - Robert Galbraith
Genre: F/M, Robin is an actress, Strike is a bodyguard, alternative universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-15
Updated: 2019-02-12
Packaged: 2019-06-10 22:49:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 27
Words: 61,719
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15301764
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jules_In_Neverland/pseuds/Jules_In_Neverland
Summary: Ex-Soldier Cormoran Strike devotes his life to protecting the famous and having sex with random girls. Robin Ellacott is a successful British Actress who, after she senses danger, hires Strike to protect her. He takes the job expecting one snobby actress more, but is surprised when he sees Robin is completely different, and can't help falling in love. There's one but: She's Mrs Cunliffe.And she's about to get killed.





	1. Mrs Cunliffe

As the snow hit with force the windows of the luxurious flat of Chelsea, the only sound in the elegantly-decorated room were the moans and the slaps of flesh against flesh as a tall, hairy and broad man with dark, unruly curls generously covering his scalp, pounded a loud woman who knelt on the bed, enjoying the morning activities and in no way tired of a nigh full of similar ones with the same man. The man let a long, raspy groan as he unloaded in the condom and exited her, expertly tying the condom up and throwing it to the trash. He was showered and dressed only twenty minutes later, as the woman still laid on the bed, sprawled and recovering with the shadow of a smile in her face. She barely raised her head as he walked past her to leave the flat.

“Will I ever see you again?” the woman asked with a hint of hope.

“Doubtfully,” he answered with a deep but soft and strong voice as he left the flat, palming his pockets to make sure he had everything and already lighting a Benson & Hedges as the jogged downstairs and to the street.

The man didn’t remember the name of the woman he had spent the night with; he never remembered their names, although he was sure the number of the different women that had filled his bed over his thirty-three years of age had three digits, so he didn’t feel too guilty for keeping their names out of his flawless memory. He walked hurriedly down the snowed street, still a little bit drunk after the night of excess, his sixteen stone, six feet and three inches of enormity scaring the passerby away and speeding up the process of getting to his breakfast meeting with his best female friend for his whole lifetime. There were literal photos back at his family home in Cornwall of him and her as newborns one next to each other asleep in a crib like siblings.

His car was so covered in snow he almost didn’t recognise it and he had to remove the snow from the door handle with his bare hands, which made him groan and then breathe warm air into his reddened huge, hairy hands, once he was sitting on the driver’s seat. He was parking by Octavia Street in Wandsworth, outside London, just half an hour later, and knocking on the dark door, knowing full well that his friend would kill him if he woke the baby up by ringing the bell.

“You’re early,” a woman said opening up the door in her plaid pyjamas and with a long, dark-blue housecoat on, hissing at the cold from the street and hurrying him inside with a hand gesture so she could close the door.

“Nice to see you too,” he smiled at her as she turned around after closing the door and smiled softly, hugging him so tightly he almost felt like throwing up his organs.

“You know I’m always very happy to see you, no matter the time. Nick just left,” Nick, her husband and Strike’s best male friend for the almost twenty-two years he had been living in London, was a doctor who often got up very early for work at a private practice.

“What a shame, haven’t seen him in a while...”

As his friend separated from him, she looked at him tenderly with her bespectacled, light eyes, her dark blonde hair long and pulled up in a messy bum and her warm and soft hands gently cupping his heavily bearded face without judgement in her eyes and examining the bags under his eyes and the bloodshot dark-green pupils.

“You look like shit,” she said sincerely, making him snort a laugh.

“Thank you, you look less pregnant,” he commented humorously.

“Oh thanks, you see, you might not have realised but that baby you sometimes see me with? It was actually inside of me six months ago, isn’t that crazy? Not anymore though...” she answered with a smirk, keeping the humorous vibes. She was the only woman he knew that woke up in a good mood without having to have sex for it, and he had a mother, a sister, and two female cousins who were close, so he knew women.

Ilsa Herbert guided him down a long corridor and into the kitchen, where she had been preparing warm tea for herself and warm chocolate for him. He appreciated it with a thankful smile and a hum of contentment as he took the first sip of the big mug.

“How’s the kiddo?” he asked. He wasn’t very good with children, but he was trying very hard with his only goddaughter, the six-months-old and only child of the matrimony, and a very wanted, very hoped for baby. However, he had some problems with the fact that the baby was a girl, and he rarely accepted to hold her, which his friends were comprehensive and understanding with.

“She’s fine, look at her,” Ilsa pointed to the floor just a couple meters behind him, where it rested an electronic baby chair that rocked the baby in soft motions. On it slept a little girl covered by a thick blanket, her lips pouty and an arm over her bit of dark blonde hair, her cheeks pink.

“Cute,” he said sipping from his mug. Without muttering a word, Ilsa had casually put a painkiller pill next to his mug and he took in worthlessly. Little Mackenzie would’ve been best friends with someone Strike would prefer not thinking about, so he tried to avoid the thought of the baby and flopped on a stool, which left the sleeping baby behind her. Ilsa sat next to him with her cheek on her hand. “Can’t believe you’re still on maternal leave, they’ve made those things longer isn’t it?”

“I’m working from home, actually,” Ilsa smiled softly at him. She was a lawyer working for a law firm in London. “So... have you got that job interview today? How’s it looking?”

“Ugh, some actress...” he rolled eyes. Ilsa snorted. “She’s going to be some rich snob surrounded by luxuries with some fan sending her letters constantly like John Lennon, so she feels threatened. Like all the others, they think they’re bloody Queen Elizabeth.” Ilsa giggled.

“’I’m going to be a personal bodyguard’ you said, ‘tons of money and meeting nice people’, you said,” Ilsa chuckled at him. He sighed rolling eyes. “Oh, come on Cormoran, cheer up! She’s an actress right? Maybe she’s gorgeous and single.”

“She’s Robin Ellacott,” grumbled Cormoran Strike. Ilsa’s eyes widened and she covered her mouth to avoid squealing too loud for Mackenzie. “Oh, don’t tell me you’re a fan...”

“Of course I am, weren’t you listening the hundred times I’ve spoken about her?” Strike looked innocently. “Of course you weren’t. Anyway, she’s the girl from the detective series I told you about, the theatre play you bought Nick and I tickets for Christmas, from the Borgias and Patrick Melrose! She’s amazing! I think she must be the sweetest person alive, she seemed like that.”

“She’s an actress, she can seem like anything,” Strike shrugged. “So is she married?” Ilsa grimaced.

“Unfortunately for you, yes. I believe she’s married to some accountant... I think they’ve been together forever, don’t know. Anyway, she’s actually Mrs Robin Cunliffe. She’s such a brilliant actress, you’re lucky.”

“I’ll ask her for an autograph for you then.”

Strike was at his appointment in Richmond at half an hour past ten in the morning, finding the luxurious but small house between other luxurious but much bigger houses covered with snow, five minutes early. That gave him enough to take another painkiller and smoke another fag before walking to the fence, straightening her tie, and pressing his fat finger against the intercom button.

“Yes?” a voice answered.

“Cormoran Strike, I’m here for a job interview to be Mrs Cunliffe’s bodyguard.” He said formally with his strong voice.

“Opening...”

The fence opened and Strike walked the three steps to the robust door, that opened before he could knock on it, showing a short, plump, dark-haired woman who looked like a housemaid.

“Mrs Cunliffe will be with you right away Mr Strike, please come in,” Strike was directed through the big house into a big sitting room. “Would you want something to drink? Beer, coffee, tea, water?”

“Water is fine, thank you,” said Strike flopping on the sofa. Just a minute later the glass of water arrived and Strike looked around the room as he drank it. There was a fireplace and, on the wall above it, hung a big framed picture of horses in a farm. On top of the fireplace there was also a small framed picture of who Strike recognised as Robin Cunliffe smiling big hugging a brunette man and kissing his cheek. Strike supposed that was Mr Cunliffe.

“Hello, sorry I took so long,” said a sweet voice. Strike turned and saw a smiley, tall and stunning strawberry-blonde woman. She was prettier than in the pictures.

“Too long?” Strike smiled at Robin Cunliffe, shaking her hand. “I barely just came through the door.” Robin giggled so sweetly and sat on the sofa across from him.

“I’m glad. Are you cold, do you wish to turn the fire on?” Robin offered kindly, gesturing towards the fireplace. Strike shook his head.

“It’s all right, thank you.” Robin nodded.

“Martha dear, would you be so kind to bring me the letters, if you don’t mind?” Robin asked her maid, with such politeness Martha could’ve been her boss, and not her employee.

“Right away, Robin,” Martha smiled at her and walked outside the room.

“How are you?” Robin looked sweetly at him. “You look tired, was this too early?” she added with a tone of sincere concern. Strike raised his eyebrows in surprise. She expected her to be an uptight snob but she was the absolute opposite.

“No, I always look like this,” Strike chuckled a little and Robin giggled.

“We’ll schedule our meetings later the next times anyway, I’d hate to be the reason you don’t sleep properly. The reason I wanted to talk to you, Mr Strike, is that I’ve been receiving worrying letters for a few months now. I’d go to the police but those people have much more important things to pay attention to, right? So I thought perhaps you could look into it,” explained Robin.

“Sure, what kind of letters? Obsessed fans?”

“Oh, those come too,” Robin smiled a little. “But these are different, they gave my husband and I chills. Martha just went for them, you’ll see.”

Fifteen minutes later, Strike finished reading the last of the over fifty letters they had stored. They were machine-typed, and included stomach-wrenching descriptions of the things an anonymous wished to do to Robin, such as fucking her in all possible ways, describing acts Strike would much rather not have read, and then, in crueller letters, describing disgusting things such as opening Robin up in canal so the nutter could touch her in all of her insides too. Robin gave him an understanding soft smile seeing his face of disgust.

“Right, I think I’ve got it. I’m sorry you’re getting this.”

“Thanks,” Robin nodded. “I guess it’s some crazy fan of those, but they scare me and I need to be focused on my work, not in these. I’ve started sleeping badly and I can’t continue like this so I thought it would make me feel much safer if a bodyguard could guarantee my safety at all times. I read you were an investigator for the military, right?”

“That’s right.”

“Could you perhaps figure out who’s behind this? I’d like to put an end to it.”

“I can try my very best. I was a good investigator and I’m a good bodyguard,” Strike nodded.

“Good. Am I your only client, will you be able to be available 24-7?”

“I just finished up with my other clients so of course,” Strike nodded again. “When do you want me to start?”

“Oh, for now you can just investigate and I’ll call you when I need you to escort me, which will be often, starting tomorrow at eight in the morning, I have to go to work at the theatre. I’ll need you to accompany me to any events and work-related things and hang around making sure I’m safe at all times. And if you don’t mind, would it be possible for you to stay here at night? I’ve got a lovely guest room and thing is, despite the fences we installed and everything, for me nights are the worst. I’d feel much better knowing you’re here,” Robin blushed heavily, embarrassed, and avoided his glance.

“Count on it,” Strike nodded. “Mrs Cunliffe... it’s okay to be afraid. I’m glad you’re asking for help instead of letting yourself go unprotected. These letters are disgusting and scary and you shouldn’t be having to deal with them. Please, don’t be embarrassed, asking for help doesn’t make you less of a strong person, just someone prudent.” Robin smiled kindly at him, looking up at him.

“Thank you, is very nice of you... I just...” Robin shrugged. “I guess you must know, might be important... I was raped once,” Strike’s eyes widened. “I count you’ll be discreet with all we talk, I didn’t make a confidentiality contract...”

“Don’t worry about it, I’m a tomb.” Robin looked at him with gratitude.

“I was just twenty-years-old, in university... I did martial arts afterwards, with ex-soldiers. It was the only way for me to feel safe enough to leave my flat, you know? And theatre... it helped me heal. I don’t know what I’d do if I couldn’t pursue my passion any longer because of this, it’s what keeps me sane, you know?” Strike nodded slowly. “I was in the dark for many years... and now I’m finally happy and well. But I can’t help but get scared upon this and think what if they drug me or something and I can’t defend myself? And even if I could, I still need for someone to catch them, and I don’t want to bother the Met with my silly issues.”

“Your issues aren’t silly, at least not this one,” said Strike sincerely. He felt an unexplainable need to comfort her. Robin’s lips curved into a soft smile.

“You don’t know how glad I am to have you. Your efforts will be greatly compensated.” Strike nodded in appreciation.

They talked for a while longer, discussing Robin’s events and responsibilities, the places she frequented, who won if something happened to her, the possible enemies, everything that could be useful for Strike, and then he left, with promises of seeing her later when he had picked up his things to stay at her house.


	2. Here to protect you

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Strike gets started into his new life.

As Strike packed up a big suitcase and a couple bags, not knowing how many weeks or even months he could be living at the Cunliffe’s house, (or more like small manor), he made a conscious effort to avoid staring at any reminders of two certain brunettes that filled his dreams day and night, but when a small framed picture fell off the bookshelf of his sitting room after he had accidentally bumped with it, he sighed looking down at the object on the floor knowing he would have to confront it.

He slowly leaned down and picked it up, and, holding his breath, he flipped the picture and looked at it. There was a little girl of about two years, with long dark curly hair back in a ponytail, sitting on her knees on Strike’s lap as his arms surrounded her. Her little hands cupped his face and kissed him on the cheek. Strike’s hand shook and, feeling the lump in his throat, he put the photograph back where it was and got a Doom Bar from the fridge, giving it a long sip as he picked up his things with his free hand and got ready to go.

Strike arrived at the Cunliffe’s manor at nearly dinner time, since he had been invited to have dinner with them, and from the moment he arrived Martha smiled at him warmly and walked him not to the guest room, but to the guest house, a small two-storey building attached to the main house. Strike silently thanked the stars for it. His car was now parked in the huge family garage next to Robin’s old Land Rover, and his new ‘house’ had a kitchenette next to a dining table in the ground floor and then climbing a wooden spiral stair he reached a small room with a big bed facing a huge wall TV and then there was a bathroom reasonably big. It was pretty nice.

“Everything to your liking?” a cheerful voice surprised him as he stood by the kitchenette looking around, impressed. There were huge windows with views to the garden and Strike had been fixated on the views. He turned around and for reasons unknown, blushed at the view.

Robin stood there with a warm smile, her long, strawberry-blonde hair loose, her make-up barely existent, her blue-gray eyes sparkling at him, her hands in the back pockets of her long jeans at a complete ease with him.

“Indeed, this is incredible,” Strike nodded, looking pleased and satisfied. “Thank you, I would’ve been happy with the cupboard under the stairs.” His joke elicited a small giggle from Robin and he couldn’t help but smile at the sound, liking it.

“Oh I’m sorry, it’s busy with my enemies’ bodies,” she returned the joke with a silly seriousness that made his smile bigger. “Anyway...” she had blushed, and looked around before looking back at him. “Breakfast is served from seven to ten every day, from nine to eleven on the weekends and festive days, lunch from twelve to one-thirty every day, tea time’s from five to six and dinner is from six to nine, you can pass by at any of those times if you want to eat with us or serve yourself here. My schedule is on a board on the kitchen so the service knows when I have compromises and won’t be coming, if you need it... and I told the service to come and clean around on Friday afternoons but you can cancel it if you want, just tell Martha. There’s a laundry room at your service in the house if you want, or you can just tell Martha to do your laundry too, she won’t mind, we have enough people working and they are nicely paid. They’ll wash an iron your clothes so after a whole day following me around you don’t have to worry about that. Oh, the service does take two days off during the week, each has them at different times.” She explained, and Strike nodded in understanding. “Anything you need, even free days, just ask. And,” she pulled a keychain with some keys from her pocket and gave it to him. “You can come and go as you wish, this isn’t prison.” She added with a smirk.

“Believe me, if prison was this nice I would be doing all I could to be arrested,” Strike joked with a side smile. She giggled.

“Sush you,” Robin joked. “Oh and if you need anything, there’s a pool, Jacuzzi, kitchen... all sorts of things in the house. Even videogames. You’re free to use anything.”

“You’re too nice Robin, I’m here to work, not on holiday...”

“You are doing something amazing for me, and I’m making you leave your house and your family, let me be a good host!” Strike shook his head.

“I live alone,” said Strike simply.

“Oh,” Robin nodded. “Good then uh...” she motioned outside. “Dinner?”

They walked inside the main house and into a large dining-room, where several members of the service were having dinner already, along with Mr Cunliffe.

“Everyone,” said Robin cheerfully. “Let me introduce you to Mr Cormoran Strike, he’ll be my bodyguard from now on.” There were smiles and a choir of ‘hi!’ and Strike waved back shyly.

“Mr Strike,” Robin’s husband stood up and gave him a tight smile as he shook his hand with unnecessary excessive strength. “I’m Matthew Cunliffe, Robin’s husband. It’s nice to meet you.”

“My pleasure,” said Strike politely. “I heard you’re an accountant, must be nice to have such a calm work environment without all the loudness and the death threats.” He commented trying to sound sympathetic.

Matthew nodded and, for most of the meal, bore Strike with details about his job. Robin seemed fascinated at Matthew’s ‘talent’, ‘ingenious ideas’ and ‘hard-work’, but Strike was unimpressed and found him very egocentric, so he didn’t accept the invitation to drink Bourbon after dinner and simply went to bed. The next day Robin had early rehearsals.

After putting on the alarm of his phone, he left it on the night stand and snuggled into his duvet, letting a long sigh out as he closed his eyes thinking that Matthew didn’t deserve a wife like Robin, who before even mentioning a word about her job, asked how everyone else was doing. Someone who had her service eat with them, someone who brought most of the money home yet still acted selflessly, kind and caring, with humility. Matthew deserved... the cupboard under the stairs full of dead bodies.

“Daddy, daddy!” a little girl laughed and ran across the beach, splashing water as her small feet hit the coast, and Strike laughed running behind her. “You can’t catch me, daddy! Look how fast I am, mummy!”

“I’ve got you!” Strike took the little girl with his big hands under her armpits and threw her to the sky, making her laugh and then snuggle against his naked and hairy torso as he hugged her close and kissed the top of her head. “I always got you.” He murmured against her unruly curls, smiling warmly at her. The little girl grinned big, her big green eyes looking at him.

Strike’s eyes opened up and he breathed heavily, rubbing his eyes as he groaned and rolled around, extending a hand to his mobile. It was only six in the morning. He got up, got dressed, and went out for a run.

**. . .**

When Strike came back it was close to seven in the morning and freezing outside, so he took a warm shower and got dressed into non-sweated clothes before heading into the house for breakfast. A sweet smile invaded his nostrils and he heard laughter, despite it being so bloody early, as he walked into the dining room. Everyone was in pyjamas and Robin was laughing hard with Martha and another employee, who were sitting next to her. Matthew was reading the newspaper and eating a croissant.

“Cormoran! Good morning, did you sleep nicely?” Robin beamed at him and he couldn’t grumble at her with that sweet face, so he forced a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes.

“Yes, was just out of a run...” he commented sitting on a free chair. Matthew frowned at him over his newspaper.

“Jogging so early?” Robin was impressed, and so was the service. “Woah, don’t I have the best bodyguard? Look at that Matt, I’m not the only one crazy enough to go jogging early!”

“You go jogging in the morning?” asked Strike, surprised.

“I like to do exercise often, if I don’t stay fit the job can become horrible on the body,” commented Robin. “Although with everything that’s been going on, I’ve had to settle with the treadmill.”

“We can go together tomorrow,” offered Strike. Robin smiled.

“You wouldn’t mind?”

“Not at all, it’s nice to have some company when jogging,” said Strike, unsure as to why he was so keen to have _her_ company. It wasn’t something that usually happened with other people. Matthew didn’t seem happy though.

“I think it’s maybe safer for Robin to stay at home as much as she can, don’t you think?” argued Matthew.

“I think Robin needs to always be in shape, ready for a fight in case she sees herself in the situation,” said Strike after gulping a sip of the orange juice he was offered.

“I thought with you here she wasn’t supposed to ever have to fight?”

“Mr Cunliffe,” Strike didn’t feel calling him by his name would be accepted by him. “I understand you’re worried about your wife, but if safety was as easy as just putting in a bodyguard, everyone would have one. In the end I’m as human as anyone else, if we’re attacked and I get killed, all is in her hands.”

Matthew frowned by said nothing, and Strike busied himself with the eggs lowered in front of him that smelled so amazingly.

After breakfast, Strike waited for Robin to be ready to go while he went and took his personal handgun, placing it in the holster of his belt, and after twenty minutes, the young woman came downstairs with a smile, wearing baggy simple clothes and a messy bum. Strike felt his stomach flip at the sight and nervously followed her to the garage, keeping an eye out for any possible danger even as they entered the Land Rover. Strike was surprised to find out that Robin drove herself most of the time.

“Oh, come on, how posh did you think I was?” asked Robin with a giggle as she expertly drove away from the house.

“With that house?” Strike whistled and nodded and Robin laughed loudly.

“The house was Matt’s idea. He wants a big house, luxuries... but I set some ground rules, like the service eating with us. The house is just in preparation for the children, there are good schools in this area.” Strike’s heart twitched for no reason.

“You’re pregnant?”

“No,” Robin seemed relaxed and in her own zone driving the old battered Land Rover. “I’m focused on my career for the moment. Matthew though, has been trying, but I insist it’s not the time, and even less with this whole business up.”

“Wise of you,” Strike nodded, looking through the window as they drove through Richmond towards London City.

“What about you? No children?” she asked casually.

“I told you I live alone,” reminded Strike with a small timid smile, trying to be casual.

“I know, I just thought perhaps you were divorced,” Robin shrugged. “It’s hard to believe a man like you is all by himself.”

“A man like me?” Strike asked amused. Robin blushed hard, for Strike’s enjoyment.

“You know... you’re strong, you’re not ugly, you’re fit... and your curriculum is quite impressive, a graduate in criminology at Oxford, with nine years of military service...” Robin whistled in admiration, her eyes fixed on the road. “Can’t believe no one tried to get you.”

“Well uh...” Strike cleared his throat and shrugged. “I tend to have more one-night-stands than serious relationships. Not many women are willing to be with a man with such a risky profession.”

“Shame,” Robin smiled a little. “Why did you drop the SIB?” she asked, turning left and accelerating a little. A knot formed in Strike’s throat and he closed his eyes facing the window and forcing himself to relax and sound normal, clearing his voice again.

“I didn’t enjoy it anymore,” lied Strike. Robin nodded silently. “Did you always want to be an actress?”

“No,” Robin smiled small. “I wanted to be a psychologist, studied for it, went to St. Andrews. I had been doing theatre just as a hobby and then after what happened...” Robin bit her lip and did something like a half shrug. “I wasn’t okay for a very long time,” she said with a low voice. “Theatre got me out of my parents’ house after eighteen months. It got me going... I don’t know, it must be something about just focusing on being someone else... I made it through. And then I enjoyed it so much and success was coming to my doorstep so I took the flight and never looked back.” Strike nodded slowly. “You haven’t researched me in Wikipedia, detective?” she added with a smirk.

“Wikipedia is just your story told by people who weren’t even there,” replied Strike tenderly. “I like for stories to be told by their protagonists.” Robin smiled appreciatively.

“You are one of the good ones, Cormoran. Don’t betray my trust, will you?” Strike fixed his eyes on her.

“I wouldn’t dream of it.”

They made it to the National Theatre of London ahead of time and Strike was somewhat surprised to discover a crowd of photographers around the entry for actors, making it hard for Robin to drive forward despite the theatre’s security team’s efforts.

“Jesus Christ, is it always like this?” Strike asked looking at her. Robin smiled.

“Every now and then. Today’s the last rehearsal before the opening night tomorrow so...” Robin shrugged. “I’m sorry, by the way, you’ll be in the photographs and they’ll start invading your privacy and wanting to know everything about the person they’ll call ‘new love interest’ of mine... I would’ve mentioned it sooner but I thought you knew when you came for the job interview. You can still back down if you want though.” Strike let a long sigh out and shook his head.

For some reason he felt a sense of protection towards her and the idea of someone else taking his place. He only trusted himself with her safety.

“I’m here to protect you at all costs and that’s exactly what I’m going to do.” Said Strike before getting out of the car, raising his gun up in the air. “EVERYONE TAKE THREE STEPS BACK!!! NOW!!!” he roared walking around the car to draw an invisible circle of protection. The photographers took more photos, but were scared enough to walk back as he said and allow Robin inside the building. Strike followed the car by foot and met with Robin in the parking lot and she exited the car.

“That was incredible!” she complimented him, impressed. “Thank you!”

“Anytime,” Strike smiled warmly at her. “Ready for Act 1?”


	3. Privacy violation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Working for a celebrity has some cons

A week working for Robin proved to be one of the most pleasurable weeks of Strike’s lifetime and they soon became good friends. Robin didn’t have many friends outside work and she appreciated the freshness of Strike, someone completely different from most of his friends. Strike didn’t have many friends either, and none of them were country girls from Masham, North Yorkshire who, as Strike soon found out, had spent their childhood horse-riding and earning championships for it. Between one thing and another, working stopped looking like working.

Robin had been filming a movie during the past summer and now it was the film premiere in London. It was an etiquette event and Strike was forced to wear a suit, making sure to have a bulletproof jacket right between his underwear t-shirt and his formal shirt, just in case, and his gun holstered safely. He tried for his hair to look less unruly and he cut his beard neatly before going into the house, where Robin was surrounded by his team of hairdressers, make-up artists, and others.

“All right, how’re you doing?” he asked before looking up and being speechless. In front of her was the most stunning woman he had ever seen, and he had been with very stunning women. Robin had a beautiful long dress, her make-up just right and her hair fell in perfect waves. She looked so simple yet so flawless and Strike felt his brain stop working. Matthew stood next to her smiling proudly at her, smug.

“Isn’t _my wife_ absolutely flawless?” Matthew bragged. Robin giggled and Strike’s mouth closed and opened before he cleared his throat.

“Nice dress,” said Strike clearing his throat again. “Shall we go?”

They had agreed that Strike would drive her, to limit the amount of people exposed to the danger by being around her. He knew the safest routes and he was a great driver, so Robin had no issues with it. The letters had gotten more aggressive in the last few days.

The film premiere was in no other than Trafalgar Square and the place was so packed it made Strike nervous, but Robin just sat in the back making small talk and dancing to the radio and just being absolutely relaxed, so Strike drove as calmly as he could following the indications of the event’s security teams and then got out of the car, giving it to the chauffeur to drive it away, and went to open Robin’s door. Flashes of cameras immediately blinded him and he had to narrow his eyes.

Robin, on the other side, beamed, grinning and waving, quick to go sign some autographs, while Strike followed suit, always standing next to her, no matter how many pictures he screwed up. Robin’s PR and her agent stood close by as Robin signed a dozen autographs per minute and then walked straight to the red carpet. She knew the drill and Strike just tried to catch up.

The young woman was just posing for a picture beaming with her two main co-stars when Strike saw a figure push one of the camera man aside and jump over the red cordon, running to the three stars, that barely had time to even register what was happening before Strike had ran to the guy and thrown himself on top, both men colliding on the red carpet. They wrestled as the cameras took photographs all excited, and Strike noticed the attacker had a small knife at hand. Strike managed to punch him so hard his nose broke but then the guy kicked him on the groin and suddenly the attacker was on top of Strike.

Everything happened so fast and, in an instant, the attacker was on the ground next to Strike, unconscious, and Robin was squatting next to Strike.

“You okay?” she asked with a worried frown. She had kicked the guy on the head full force with her heel. Strike panted and sat up.

“I should be the one asking,” he replied, impressed. Police was already arresting the unconscious, bleeding man, and taking him away. “That was brutal...”

“You weren’t so bad yourself,” she chuckled at him. “Oh, he cut you...” she frowned as she saw Strike’s shirt had a small slice in the belly.

“Oh,” Strike looked down. “Shit, this shirt wasn’t cheap... don’t worry,” he added, seeing Robin’s worry. “I’m wearing a bulletproof vest. I’m completely fine.”

“Right,” Robin smiled. “Well, the show must go on, am I right?”

But what Strike loved the most was the event after all the events, when they got home, put on their pyjamas and sweatshirts, and threw themselves on the sofas drinking champagne and watching a show about funny falls on TV. Matthew and the service were already in bed, so it was just the two of them and the TV, and Strike found out he liked that Robin the most, as she laughed with her head thrown back, her arms around her belly, tears in her eyes, and then groaned like a pig, making him laugh harder.

“So let me get this straight,” they were walking under the sun now that the snow was starting to fade, walking through St. James’ Park after one of Robin’s rehearsals. “If you die, your husband becomes billionaire.”

“That’s right,” Robin nodded, her hands on her pockets as she walked calmly next to him. “He’s the only one who knows what’s in my will of all people who get benefited by it too.”

“That’s interesting,” Strike frowned slightly. “You mentioned you don’t have any enemies but your rapist, who I’ve investigated is still in prison, but Matthew has a strong motive. And the guy who attacked you at the premiere said he was paid by an anonymous to kill you, Robin. Matthew has money for that.”

“Are you insinuating my husband is plotting to kill me?” Robin scowled at him and Strike sighed, looking apologetic. “Cormoran!”

“Robin you hired me to figure out who’s trying to kill you and protect you, not to please your ears, didn’t you?” said Strike softly. “I’ve been following you everywhere for two months and investigating every employee, every letter... the style of those letters is very similar to the style Matthew has of speaking.”

“Oh really? Because Matthew has never spoken of doing any of...!”

“I know!” Strike hissed. “But do you think I’d continue harassing you with questions about him if I didn’t have strong suspicions? Listen Robin.” They stopped in the middle of the park, very close to each other, March’s sunlight hitting them with strength. “Matthew makes monthly payments of several thousand pounds without justification...”

“They have justification; they’re for his own personal services of personal secretary and others.”

“That’s what he says.”

“He is my _husband_ ,” Robin glared at him. “We’ve been together for the past ten years, married for almost four. He would never try to hurt me, he’s in love with me. You need to rethink things Cormoran, because focusing in him you’re missing the real responsible.” Strike sighed and nodded.

“Anyway, what are your plans for Thursday?” Strike changed topics, and Robin shrugged.

“Thursday what?”

“The ninth.”

“I have none,” Robin shrugged again. “I’ll be at home I guess. Might go to the movies with Matt if he’s up for it.” She murmured. Strike nodded.

“I need that day off,” said Strike. Robin looked at him with eyes wide in surprise.

“You’ve never asked for a day off, are you sick?” she joked, but she was met with seriousness. “Oh God, are you okay?” she worried immediately, a hand meeting his shoulder with softness.

“I’m fine. I just...” he shrugged. “My sister asked me if I could babysit her sons. I said I would.”

“Great,” Robin nodded, satisfied. “You never told me you had a sister... or nephews. As a matter of fact, you rarely talk about yourself.”

“Fine...” Strike rolled eyes but chuckled small. “I’ve got a sister, Lucy. She’s a couple years younger than me, she’s married, and she’s got three sons. Very small children.” He elaborated reluctantly. Robin nodded, seemingly satisfied.

“Well who am I to stand between an uncle and his poppets?” Robin chuckled. “Have fun in uncle-land then.” Strike nodded.

Then something caught Strike’s attention and Robin had to rush to follow his sudden change of path, hurriedly walking towards a magazines’ stand. Strike practically ripped a magazine off its place and Robin saw the front page. ‘Actress Robin Ellacott & New personal bodyguard... is there something more?’ it came accompanied with a picture in poor quality of Strike and Robin doing their morning jogging and laughing at something. It was just days old and despite the bad quality you could still recognise them perfectly well. It was probably taken with a phone. Strike quickly passed pages to the main article, where a few photos could be seen, one of Strike and Robin sitting together on a bench sharing a bag of chips and looking attentively and sweetly at each other, another of Robin all elegant in a dress at an event and Strike, dressed up in his suit, holding an umbrella for her in the middle of a rainfall while keeping a protective arm around her, and the last one, in the street outside the National Theatre, where they stood in front of each other, very close, Strike’s hand cupping Robin’s cheek. It looked like a sweet, tender, couple moment, but Robin knew she had gotten something in her eye and had asked Strike to check it for her.

Robin read over Strike’s shoulder. Most of the article was pure speculation about whether Strike and Robin’s relationship was purely professional or not, but then a title caught her eye. In bold letters and next to a picture of Strike, young in his twenties, in his SIB uniform, it could be read ‘Who is Ms Ellacott’s new bodyguard?’ Next came a complete invasion of privacy. Somehow, they had found out that Strike was an Oxford graduate in Criminology, that he was a Cornishman, that he worked in the Royal Military Police’s SIB from 2005 to 2014, and then more morbid and scabrous details of his life that Robin hadn’t known before. They mentioned Strike was the son of an Afghanistan hero killed in combat, they put a photo of Strike, the handsome groom of a stunning bride, that Robin never even thought that existed, and underneath the photo of a little brunette girl, next to a sentence in bold ‘His late wife & daughter, were tragically killed in a car crash in 2014’.

A lump had settled in Robin’s throat and she felt like throwing up. The feeling only worsened when she noticed the shaking of Strike’s hands, the paleness of his face, and she knew the magazine wasn’t making things up. His father was dead, and so were his wife and daughter. And those pictures were private and the magazine had gotten them... how?

Strike put the magazine back in its place with feign calmness and Robin felt even sadder. There he was, accepting that a bunch of people were going to make money with diary put on the front page, with his personal storms, with his traumas, with his family’s private pictures and tragic stories. Robin walked to the magazine stand and called the seller’s attention.

“Good morning,” Robin smiled politely. “I am Robin Ellacott. I want to inform you that this magazine over here,” she took the magazine and gave it to the seller. “Contains details obtained without permission of the private life of an employee of mine, who isn’t a person of public interest and therefore this constitutes a violation of his privacy and it’s a misdemeanour I’m going to sue the magazine for, and so I will sue anyone who supports a criminal activity by selling these and obtaining money at my employee’s expense. So if I were you, I’d immediately retire this magazine from your stands.” She finished with a cold glance and saw panic in the seller’s face before turning around and looking for Strike. She didn’t see him at first, despite his enormous size.

Then she saw him and she felt something break inside of her. He had found a more hidden spot on a bench behind a robust tree and some bushes, and he was smoking a fag with bright, teary eyes, while looking at something in his wallet. Robin felt indescribable rage inside of her and she called her lawyer in the phone. After a small conversation, legal measures were on the making and Robin rushed to Strike, sitting next to him. He had finished his fag and was staring silently at the picture in his wallet. Robin saw it was of a little girl, brunette and looking a lot like Strike, although her features were feminine and delicate, the waves of her hair organised and bright, and her face, full of innocence and youth. She couldn’t be older than three years old, if anything.

“I’ve called my legal team,” commented Robin using a soft, calm voice, as she put a hand on Strike’s thigh and stroke there softly. “They broke the law because you and even less your family aren’t a person of public interest, they can’t put the pictures of your family without consent, so we’ll be taking legal measures. They’re going to be sued and the photos will be taken down and I’m going to push to force the magazine to publish a public apologize stating what they did wasn’t legal. I am so, so, so sorry, Cormoran. This shouldn’t have happened.” She pressed her lips against his shoulder, her eyes fixed on Strike’s face, his trembling lips, the way he took a deep breath and nodded, putting his wallet back in his jacket. “Wanna go somewhere private?” Strike gave an almost imperceptible nod and Robin took his arm, walking away from there.


	4. The end of diplomacy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> One better not bother Robin Venetia Ellacott, or she may explode.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone! Thank you so much for your reviews. My wrist is doing better, and I am always thankful and blessed to get reviews and see what all of you think. If you wish to, I have a tumblr (https://thetrunkofthenighttraveler.tumblr.com/) where I often talk about my fics, or post content fandom related, if you want to check it or talk to me there, feel free!  
> Hugs!

In her close to nine years living in London, Robin had managed to befriend a few useful contacts, one of them being the owner of The Tottenham pub, who always had a private corner free for her, with just a window with closed curtains, and a robust room divider like the ones used in restaurants protecting the table from the rest of the pubs, protecting Strike and her from indiscreet eyes. They had sat in silence and Robin observed perplexed as Strike nursed is fourth big pint. He looked less broken now, and just like he had run on the treadmill for a few hours, completely exhausted.

“I was thirteen –“

“You don’t have to tell me,” interrupted Robin in a soft, tender whisper, her cup of wine almost untouched. “It’s your life. No one should force you to speak more about it than you want to.”

Strike looked at her with bright eyes full of emotion and he nodded, taking a deep breath.

“I want you to know from me,” said Strike with a rough, hoarse voice. “Not from them or... or anyone else. ‘Cause... I think you’re my friend. And you’ve told me things... you trust me with your life...” he rubbed his eyes, impatient. Robin reached a hand and squeezed his forearm tenderly. “I want to...” he shook his head and shrugged almost imperceptibly.

“All right,” Robin smiled a little. “But you don’t owe me anything, okay? Our situations are very different. Just because I told you... I don’t feel you should do it too. You’re my friend, Cormoran... of course you are. And I don’t want to put you in any rough situation, it’s already bad enough.” Strike nodded slowly.

A long sip from his pint came before he felt ready to continue.

“It was five months before my fourteenth birthday,” said Strike, hoarsely. “It was like in the movies... the uniforms knocked on the door, I opened, they asked where my mother was. It was Sunday, so we were all home here in London. I heard through the closed door. It was an improvised explosive device. There weren’t pieces of my father to bury,” Robin felt tears in her eyes. Strike just looked at his glass. “Mum couldn’t even cry. She couldn’t look at us. My dad... he was a good man. He wasn’t some jerk. He was a model father... my sister got such an anxiety attack we had to take her to the hospital. She was eleven.”

“I’m very sorry,” Robin whispered when it became clear Strike wouldn’t continue talking. Strike nodded silently and supported his head on his arm on the table, drinking the last of his pint.

“I want... whiskey...” slurred Strike after a while. Robin came back ten minutes later with a good bottle of whiskey and a bit of food that Strike ate absentmindedly. Robin ate it with him, sitting next to him instead of in front this time around, and keeping an arm around him, rubbing his back. “I’ve got to tell you something nobody else knows... otherwise I might explode.” Said Strike once the plates were empty and so was his first glass of whiskey.

“I’m listening.” Strike nodded.

“I asked you that day off because... it’s the third year anniversary of... and I’m uh... planning on... alcohol...” Strike cleared his throat and groaned, rubbing his eyes tiredly. He tried to sound clearer. “I was married. She was the love of my fucking life... every man was jealous ‘cause she was freakin’ stunning... and funny and... after ten fuckin’ years together... we had everythin’. Our beautiful girl... she was only two...” he was interrupted by his own loud cry and he buried his face in his arms, his back raising up and down with his sobs. Robin put her arms around him the best she could and supported her cheek on his shoulder blade, closing her eyes as she felt his pain as if it was her own. He was sobbing for minutes and, once he calmed down, he sounded almost sleepy, talking into the table. But Robin listened. “No one knows I caused their death,” she heard clearly. With some effort, she pulled him into a sitting position and observed his pale face, eyes closed as the back of the head supported on the wall. She caressed his face softly.

“No... I’m sure it wasn’t your fault...” she said softly, tenderly caressing his cheek and stroking his hair with the same hand, alternating.

“It was...” Strike smiled acrimoniously, his reddened eyes opening a little. “I came home. I saw her fucking our young mail man,” his voice sounded impressively clear, although hoarse, “on our own bed... he was balls deep and she was yelling like...” he shook his head. “But I knew she was enjoying it, loving it... ten years together, I’d know. Our daughter must’ve been with my parents-in-law...” he sighed. “I confronted her. She wanted to leave me. She said I was rarely home, with the army... I called her whore, bitch, I wished her dead, I called her terrible things... I slapped so hard her lip bleed. I broke the dude’s nose and he ran away. I ran away. No one knows... I went to get drunk... No one knows... And only an hour after I left... I got a phone-call from the police. They said my wife and child had died in a car crash. I guess she was trying to take my child away from me... perhaps both running away... or perhaps they tried to find me... but I was the reason they were in the car. We lived downtown and... traffic... rain... darkness... hard to drive... a truck missed a red light and squashed them against another building. They were squashed like...” Strike hit the table with his hand, killing a fly. Robin was startled and Strike unceremoniously washed his hand with his napkin. “That’s why I became a bodyguard. I sunk so hard I was full of debt and I wasn’t stable for the army and I needed money, my friends got the idea and I thought it’d be perfect. Now you know... before the press finds out.”

“They won’t,” Robin promised. “I’ll protect our secret.”

**. . .**

After tucking Strike in his bed with a ton of painkillers and two bottles of water left on the nightstand, a bucket on the floor next to the bed, Robin made her way back inside the house.

“Martha, please call my lawyer, make sure the legal procedures are happening. And call my agent, cancel all my appointments for today and tomorrow. Reschedule. I’ll be at meetings with Mr. Strike for the rest of the day, I don’t want anyone to interrupt.”

Then Robin locked the guest house, closed its curtains and blinds, and laid on the bed next to Strike, over the duvet, a hand on his upper arm. She watched as he slept and was there when he needed to throw up, making him take his meds and helping him back into bed every time. She helped him eat some soup for dinner and then sat against the head of his bed as he slept, snoring next to her, with the laptop on her thighs. She took a few deep breaths before writing a full statement herself:

_‘I am deeply saddened and disappointed by the publication of articles relating my bodyguard, Mr. Cormoran Strike’s life and, since he isn’t a person of public interest and in no moment did he consent for PRIVATE family pictures to be taken or published or shown, we will be taking legal measures to combat this CRIMINAL and indignant activity. I won’t stop until the responsible people pay for what they’ve done._

_You want to know who Mr. Strike is? I will tell you. He’s a courageous, kind man, an ex-SIB and an incredible friend of mine, whom I hired and put in charge of my safety months ago, after the numerous death threats I’ve been receiving. I personally asked Mr. Strike to accompany me everywhere, to keep me safe, to guard over my house, and he’s been diligently doing his job with the outmost professionalism. There is nothing romantic about it (MAY I REMIND YOU I’M A FAITHFUL WIFE), I’ve just been so lucky he’s the kind of person one easily befriends._

_I have nothing but deep respect, gratitude and admiration towards Mr. Strike and today, after he always puts himself on the line for my well-being, I consider the only acceptable action I could take is reciprocate. Mr. Strike is a good person who today had to sit and see how a bunch of despicable crows made money at his expense divulgating private information and STEALING private pictures to make business with it. And I’ve been in profound rage and sadness seeing his privacy and intimacy violated like this, seeing how deeply he’s been disrespected and offended. Is not just that he didn’t give consent – no one did. Not even the protagonists of the pictures. And this is a criminal offence. How would you feel if your saddest memories and private stories were made public like that so a bunch of people make money AT YOUR AND YOUR FAMILY’S EXPENSES?_

_I ask everyone who might have published parts of the article or the pictures in any social networks, websites, blogs... ANYWHERE, or even downloaded them, to please delete them, because I will be taking legal measures myself against anyone who is in possession of any of it, and the people who economically benefitted at my friend’s expense. You want to be despicable crows? Fine. Then I will be a protective lioness. Difference is, law is in my favour._

_Mr. Strike counts with all of my support not just as his boss but furthermore, as his friend and I won’t stop until justice is made. You can post pictures of me and try and tell everyone my most private stories... I will fight against it already. But if you go against my friends and family, you can be sure as hell I won’t stop until your life is as ruined as I can make it._

_As a consequence of this, I will no longer be conceding interviews to any non-serious magazine, nor collaborating with them, nor offering pictures, nor nothing, even with the ones that have done nothing wrong. And I will no longer answering to anything about my employees so someone can make money with it. If the media harasses him or continues to invade his privacy and interfere with his personal life, more legal measures will follow. Same goes towards those who do any of this towards Mr. Strike’s family and friends._

_The fact that I have to even say any of this is incredible and indignant.’_

Robin included her digital signature at the end of her statement and published her statement in her webpage, and included links to it in all her social accounts, such as Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. A couple hours later, after she was satisfied with Strike’s calmness, she kissed the top of his forehead and got out of his bed.

“I’m very sorry, friend. Have sweet dreams...” she murmured. She left him a simple note on the nightstand: ‘ _Stay in bed as long as you want, all compromises have been cancelled and I’ll have food and water be brought to you every now and then. You always take care of me, let me do all I can for you this time around. Let me know if you want me to call anyone for you. Have sweet dreams. Love, Robin._ ’ Then, Robin left the room.

It was already dark outside as Robin entered the house, crestfallen, and joined her husband and employees for dinner. She discussed with him the day’s events save for the conversation Strike and Robin privately had in the pub and for her further upsetting, he barely frowned.

“He knew where he was getting into,” said Matthew. “You warned him.”

“I warned him people would inquire in his life and take photos of him, not that they’ll dig in his tragedies and post them everywhere!” Robin hissed. “And even if I did, it doesn’t make any of this right!”

“I still don’t think you should be getting so involved. You’re giving them what they want!”

“Oh, suck my arse!”

Robin got up, indignant and not really hungry, and after she had recomposed herself, she sat on the sofa of her office checking her social media in her phone, and saw what everyone was saying about her statement. There were thousands of responses outraged by the events and supporting Robin, telling her to ‘give Cormoran hugs’ from them. Robin smiled at them and even teared-up a little with the waves of support and the condemn that other celebrities and British actors were doing of the events, how they stood up for them and demanded for Strike to be respected. Other fans made respectful inquiries about whether the magazine had invented the information or not. She decided to make a little video in her laptop to clarify matters, as she had done for Q&A’s in previous occasions. She liked videos because simple texts could be taken out of context or misread, but videos were better. This one was a live video-chat, she’d see the viewers’ comments on screen as she filmed herself, live.

“Hello everyone,” Robin smiled. She looked tired but otherwise fine. “Haha, goodnight!” she added seeing people wished her goodnight. “I’m not going to hang out with you for long this time, I just wanted to thank everyone who’s been supportive. Your messages have warmed my heart and I hope Cormoran feels better with them in the morning too. No, he’s asleep,” she added seeing a question about whether Cormoran could come so they could talk to him too. “Actually, he’s a very private person and I’d rather keep it like that so... he won’t be conceding interviews, sort to say,” she smiled a little. “How am _I_ feeling?” she sighed. “Well, today my heart was broken for my friend, so... it’s been a long day. Look uh... I chose this life. I chose being an actress. Cormoran’s goals have been very different, he just wanted to catch bad guys and make this world a little safer... and he never asked for stardom, for his photographs to be taken everywhere, for people to speculate and meddle into his life, you know? I hate that this is happening. It’s repugnant. And when I hired him, I never thought this would happen. I told him people would inquiry and take pictures just because he was next to me when they wanted my picture, that’s what he accepted, not this. And I’m still surprised he hasn’t, for now, presented his resignation, but I honestly...” she shrugged. “He’s a good friend so... I think he won’t stop until I’m safe. It’s not a matter of money for him. It’s a matter of doing what is morally right for him. He saved my life once at the premiere weeks ago taking down a man who was armed with a knife and I gave him the chance to quit and he didn’t. He’s told me many times he wants me to be safe so... I want him to be safe too. So I hope this is the last time I have to talk publicly about him. Why hasn’t he spoken out?” she read the question and she almost laughed. “Well that’s not his job and he shouldn’t have to do that. I told him I’d take care of things anyway. My lawyers are handling this and it seems, for what I’ve heard, that formal complaints are already being sent so... see you in court, magazines!” she giggled keeping things in good tone. “Guys, I really couldn’t care less about whether the magazine invented the information or not. To begin with, those photos were of real people who didn’t give their authorisation, and they were private, I can tell you that, but whether they are really related to Mr. Strike, we’ll keep it to ourselves, you know? Because his personal life is not up for discussion. The magazine didn’t have a right to post private pictures without consent nor to speculate about Mr. Strike’s life. Period.” She checked her watch. “Sorry guys, I’ve got to go... but thanks for the nice messages and well, keep good vibes coming our way, we could definitely use them. Goodnight!” she waved to the camera with a smile, and the video ended.

Robin sighed and leaned back, letting a long sigh out. Long day indeed.


	5. Recovery

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Strike has a chat with his friends and he soon feels better.

The sun was up in the morning whilst still covered in some clouds that let a light rainfall through the first hours of the day. Robin woke up nervous thinking about what would be Strike’s mood of the day after having probably spent the night throwing his guts out.

“I don’t know why you’re so nervous,” Matthew commented from the bed on which he lied reading the newspaper, his tea on the nightstand. The curtains of the room were draw and the light of the early morning came into the room as Robin got dressed in front of Matthew, the closet opened wide in front of her. “He’s a grown up man, Robsie, he’s not some kid you need to protect. And he’s a bodyguard, he’s tough.”

“Matt, you didn’t see him, he was... white,” Robin didn’t want to share all the details with her husband and for some reason the idea of telling him even a little about Strike’s broken state the day before seemed like betraying her friend enormously. “It wasn’t that he isn’t tough, it was just... remembering his family, I think.”

“So the magazine said the truth?” Matthew looked at her over the newspaper. “Those were really his dead wife and daughter?” Robin cringed, buttoning up her blouse. She felt bad even telling him as much, but she figured she had to, it was her husband after all.

“Well...” Robin half-shrugged. “The photos were truly his wife and daughter and... they uh...” she sighed. “I promised I wouldn’t tell...” she gave him pleading eyes.

“I’m your husband!” Matthew got off the bed. Robin sighed again, putting on her jacket.

“All right, I’ll just tell you yes, they’re dead,” Robin breathed out. Matthew raised his eyebrows and nodded. “He saw them in the picture and...” she shook her head. “He was so sad. I don’t think he ever looks at them, he doesn’t have pictures of them in the house. And it’s recent still.”

“Then he better get over it,” Matthew put his hands on her arms and kissed her cheek. “You need to worry about all your stuff, your job, your compromises... can’t fight everyone’s battles.”

“He’s part of my battle babe, he’s fighting mine I need to at least help out,” Robin looked sad and Matthew kissed her lips briefly.

“You’re too kind,” that said, he left for the bathroom and she lifted her jeans up to her hips, putting on the belt and sighing.

Once she was all ready she went down for breakfast and asked Martha about Strike.

“Haven’t seen him,” said Martha. Robin rolled her eyes and sighed. She then walked to the guest house and after knocking, she walked inside.

“Cormoran? It’s Robin!” she looked around, not seeing or hearing anyone. Then she went upstairs and saw it was all empty. Frowning, she looked around for a note, seeing hers wasn’t there anymore and neither was the bucket, the water or the pills she had left for him. She checked her phone and realised Strike had texted her a few hours earlier, in the wee hours of the day.

**‘Sorry for my behaviour. I’ve gone to see my best friend, who’s a doctor, to make sure I’m completely all right when I come back later today. Thank you for being a friend and taking care of me and of everything with the press. I hope I didn’t cause you trouble. I promise to come back as soon as I can, I hate leaving you unguarded. You’re a good person, Robin.’**

Robin blinked a few times, surprised and relieved at once, and headed back to the house while typing out an answer.

**‘Hey you, glad you’re in good company. Don’t worry about a thing, it’s all right. None of this is your fault at all, I should’ve seen this coming. Come back whenever you are ready, I’ll be around ready to give hugs ;) you’re a good person too, Cormey.’**

She smiled to herself as she used the comedic nickname that she sometimes gave him when she was playful and mocking him for a laugh in a sympathetic way, and every time they teased one another. Strike had found an equivalent nickname for her, ‘Robsie-posey’ in a mock of the ways Matthew sometimes called her.

In the meantime, Strike had gone off to Nick and Ilsa’s at nearly four in the morning. Nick had received him with a frown and, after seeing how pale and sick he looked, had rapidly taken him in. Strike had confessed he had nearly done something crazy and had decided he couldn’t be left alone, which to Nick translated in that he had either almost hurt himself, almost killed himself or almost done drugs, three things that he had done or attempted to do in the past and that now, after rehab and after his friends’ insistence, he was trying not to do, asking for help as they all always encouraged him to do, before going mad. Nick had sat with him to talk, had heard all the day’s events, had given him some more food and hugged him until he wasn’t crying, and had, in his doctor duties, prepared a magical juice he had invented in med school, that was full of vitamins and nutrients and basically left one like a new person. With that, Strike had once again fallen asleep, not making it to the guest room but comfortably sprawled on the sofa, and Nick had tucked him in as if he was his daughter and headed back to sleep himself.

So when ten in the morning came and Ilsa sat on an armchair near the sleeping Strike to breastfeed Mackenzie while Nick busied himself with breakfast, she had already been updated and was now checking in her phone what Robin had done, being a lawyer herself and now, a very angry lawyer, hurting for her friend. She knew how private and discreet Strike always was, how afraid he was that the press would bring back all of his darkest stories and damage Robin’s reputation, and how unwanted the attention was; and she hadn’t even spoken to him yet. That was how well she knew him.

Casually, Mackenzie fell asleep after burping just as Strike started to stir, so Ilsa put the baby in the small cot they had in the sitting room and squatted down next to Strike, stroking his unruly curls with one hand as the man was face down. His eyes opened slowly with a groan.

“Do you need to throw up honey?” asked Ilsa with the softest, most tender of voices. Strike was very fond of Ilsa and she was the only person from whom he appreciated being babied when he was going through a rough patch, along with, but just at times, his own mother, who in less fortunate times unintentionally made him feel a bit guilty for being in a rough moment. Strike’s sister could never manage to baby him when he was bad without making him feel like an arsehole, even though she never intended it and she was always objectively nice with him. Strike groaned and shook his head a little in response, feeling hammers inside his head and the most utter exhaustion, and Ilsa understood and pressed a kiss to his temple. “Nick’s made breakfast if you’re hungry all right?” she informed sweetly. “I’m going to bring you some more magic juice.”

Strike couldn’t form words to express how grateful he was for the Herberts’ existence. They were part of the reason while, despite everything that had gone downhill in his life, he couldn’t quite call himself an unlucky person.

Twenty minutes later, he was sitting eating some breakfast with Ilsa and Nick, his plate considerably less full than it would otherwise have been. He was checking his phone, seeing Robin’s text and seeing a bunch of missed calls, each accompanied with a text from a different family member asking what the hell was going on because they had all seen the magazine. For his relaxation, BBC News running in the TV had more important things to talk about than Robin and him.

“What do you think about Robin’s statement and video?” Strike asked Ilsa, leaving his phone on the table. “Do you think that’ll solve the issue?”

“Well, she’s given them what they want, no doubt,” said Ilsa. “That could make others more insistent, but she’s cut that with her firm negative and with her firm adjectives towards this, so I think it should help at least a little. She’s the psychologist to know how cameramen’s minds work. Although at the same time I think now the press is going to be keener on meddling in your relationship with her, because they’ve seen she gives a shit.” Strike nodded.

“That’s what I thought,” recognised Strike. “And about the lawsuit?”

“Totally necessary,” Ilsa nodded.

“Bloody press… to think they call themselves journalist and don’t know more than meddle where they don’t belong!” Nick shook his head disapprovingly. “Glad Robin is being so nice though. Other snobs would’ve fired you.”

“She’s not really like the others,” said Strike in reference to the other people he had worked for, usually socialites, a few diplomats, politicians or even people who claimed to be related to the royalty. All snobs. All arseholes. “She’s kind. She cares about each employee, she knows their names, their birthdays, even their bloody saints and their close families’ names, even of those who are more closed-up. She has her meals with them, she laughs with them, she gets personal with them. And she hates being called ‘Mrs Cunliffe’ by her employees, she likes for them to use her name and treat her like an equal, she can have rows with them for disagreements without no one being fired and then she comes back apologizing. She’s the sweetest, gentlest of creatures.”

“Oh, someone’s got it bad…” Nick smirked a little.

“No…” Strike sighed. “She’s very married and I’m a mess, she’s worth so much more. Her husband is not worth of her either, but at least he’s not a former drug addict and an alcoholic with self-damaging and suicidal impulses who can’t stop smoking and gaining weight,” Strike shrugged, “not to mention… I’m never dating again. Charlotte was the last one.”

“But you do fuck many women per week and suddenly you live with this Robin and even that stops. You don’t even smell like fags anymore,” Nick commented. “And I see you make good use of her Jacuzzi, you even smelled like cologne the other day when we met for lunch.”

“I just want to do my job right, I’m genuinely worried about her safety,” Strike recognised. “I need to be sober for that, and casually it contributes to detoxifying so… all welcomed.”

“I’m glad she’s doing you good, and she seems like the kind of people you should surround yourself with,” Ilsa approved. “When are we going to meet her?”

“I gave you her autograph!” Ilsa laughed.

“I don’t mean as a fan, I mean, you barely leave her house and since she’s going to be a friend perhaps she could come for dinner tonight?”

“All right…” Strike nodded. “I’ll see what I can do. I better shower and go, thanks for everything guys.”

“Anytime!” they said at once.

Strike changed into his clothes after a quick shower, bid his friends farewell, took his backpack and got into a taxi back to Robin’s, not wishing to take long. The rain was falling softly and the events of the day before seemed far away now, as if he had only dreamed them or they had existed in another universe, far, far away from his own. Strike asked the taxi to leave him a few streets before the actual destination, so he could jog to the house, feeling like he needed to blow some steam, until he finally took a deep breath as he unlocked the door to the guest house, entered it, and after leaving his things, took the other door that connected the guest house to the main house. He almost collided with Martha.

“Oi, sorry!” Strike apologized.

“Cormoran! How nice to see you! Are you feeling better?” Martha asked with a smile in her kind, middle-aged, face. Strike nodded, blushing at the thought that Robin had told everyone. As if guessing his thoughts, Martha chuckled sympathetically and shook her head. “Don’t worry, Robin was a tomb. I just helped her settle you last night.”

“Oh… thank you, Martha. Talking about Robin, where is she?”

“I just left her tea, she’s in the library, reading.”

“Thanks, have a good day,” Strike rushed upstairs, straightening his shirt as he walked through the corridor and knocked on the door at the end of it. “It’s Cormoran, can I come in?” he said.

“Sure!” Strike opened the door into a room he rarely visited, with huge windows to the garden, full of light and with six huge bookshelves filling a side of it, then a long table with chairs, and then, closer to the windows, a sofa and a coffee table where it rested the tea Martha had brought Robin.

The young woman, three years younger than Strike, stood beaming putting a book on the coffee table and hurrying to hug him so tightly Strike wondered where the muscles were hiding, hugging her back and letting the soft scent of honey fill his senses and calm him down further.

“I’m so happy to see you,” Robin breathed out, as if it wasn’t already evident, making the hug longer than necessary. When she finally pulled apart, she continued to smile holding his bearded face between her hands. Strike expected to see a shadow of disgust in her face, as she observed his paleness and the bags under his eyes, but it never came. “Are you feeling better?”

“Much better,” said Strike feeling her presence only made his statement all the more sincere. “I just hope I didn’t damage your reputation or anything…”

“Oh, nonsense!” Robin caressed his face a moment longer before sitting on the sofa, and he sat next to her.

“David Copperfield…” Strike read the book cover. “I didn’t know you fancied Charles Dickens.”

“He’s a fantastic writer, in my opinion. I’ve read everything I’ve been able to find about him, fifth time with Copperfield,” Robin was sweet and gentle and so cheerful the room seemed to light on fire with her. “It always baffles me that most people think David Copperfield is only some magician. I love magic but… little David came before.” She added patting the book fondly. Strike observed how well taken-care-of the book was, only opening a little in the side from the amount of pages and the amount of readings.

“I agree. I’ve read all of him too but my favourite was always David.”

“Really?” Robin looked very impressed. Strike smiled and nodded. “Cormoran Strike, a book full of surprises.”

“Dickens just has a very deep understanding of tragedies, for some reason.” Robin nodded slowly.

“I love how despite how tragic his novels are… they’re also so crudely real with how the world is, and can capture the immensity of love and the beauty of the world with the same realism and depth as the tragedies. It’s like life itself.”

“I had never seen it that way,” Strike recognised fixated in him, marvelled by her way of thinking. The psychologist, as Ilsa had called her. “I just felt understood knowing what it was like, some things the characters go through… and seeing how someone so young eventually managed, I thought I’d have the same success. When my daughter was born, I thought I had finally done it.” He found himself opening up so effortlessly to her, and Robin observed him attentively and full of fondness, so he just felt utterly appreciated.

“You know, Cormoran… there’s beauty in tragedy too. Quoting Albus Dumbledore… happiness can be found, even in the darkest of times, if we only remember to turn on the light,” she said sounding very wise. Strike’s lips curved ever so slightly into a smile.

“Don’t you think that’s kind of rubbish though? Sometimes the world sucks and that’s all there is.”

“You just need to change the point of view,” Robin argued gently. “Like… stop and look around, you know? See not only how much worse things could be, and some people really have it much worse… but see that beauty we are so bold to keep ignoring day after way, taking it for granted. Instead of focusing in those who are no longer with us, we could focus on those who are still around. On the love our friends and our family try to give us, on the way silly things can be funny, learn to laugh of ourselves and our own foolishness, observe how cruel nature is and yet it goes on, and still how cruel is it really? Because the world is all opposites, Cormoran. And always, there’s death but also life, hate and also love, loneliness and also friendship, punches and hugs, insults and compliments. What do you want to look at?” She spoke so softly and easily her words were easy to gulp, settling inside of him without effort.

Strike nodded, understanding her point of thought and seeing she wasn’t really wrong.

“So do you suggest that every time something bad happens… we just look somewhere else?”

“No,” Robin sighed sadly. “We need to sink in our storms too, at times. I’m saying we just need to let everything sink in, in its due time. Not just see the bad… see the bad, but also let the good things fill us as much as possible. Don’t let sorrow and hate make us forget we’re good people who suffered bad things, and we must still be open to love and all the good things of life, or else, we’ll only have the shit and… I think after a whole life, it’d be sad to leave with only the suitcase of shit instead of the one of good memories too.”

“Very wise of you, Mrs Cunliffe,” Strike looked fondly at her, patting her thigh briefly. “It’s also very smart how easily you can give me a psychology session I didn’t even make an appointment for.” Robin giggled softly.

“Oh, Cormoran… you know you never need to make an appointment with me,” they locked eyes intensely and they had already gotten too physically close when Strike realised they were about to hit each other with their faces, and he abruptly pulled apart. Robin blushed. “And uh… how was it with your friends?”

Strike and Robin chatted catching up for a long time, Robin’s tea long forgotten, and also discussed the lawsuit and Robin showed him how the magazine had already retired the article and issued an apology on its website that was due to appear on the magazine the following day. They were willing to pay Strike a ton of money, but he politely refused.

Afterwards, Robin offered Strike going to the cinema and having lunch outside, to leave the house a little since Matthew would be working all day and Robin had freed her schedule for the day to be there for Strike in case he was still feeling unwell. They chose some comedy in one of London’s least crowded cinemas, and after a day of fun and a call from Matthew informing he would be having dinner with some colleagues after a late meeting, Strike offered Robin Ilsa’s dinner offer, which Robin excitedly, to Strike’s surprise, accepted.

 

 


	6. Problems on the bridge

Strike drove them to Wandsworth himself, as the rain started falling with strength. They chatted excitedly all the way there, and Strike told Robin all about how Ilsa was his oldest friend, how Ilsa’s mum and Strike’s mum were best friends from school and had practically raised them like siblings, and how Nick had become his best friend at high school, when Strike had moved to London from St. Mawes. Robin listened excitedly with a smile in her face as Strike told her about Nick and his crazy adventures as teenagers and how friendship had become a brotherhood and Nick and Ilsa had ended up meeting at the 17 th joint birthday party of the boys, fallen in love, and now they were happily married and with a daughter.

The story was just being finished as Strike parked the car and they excited it, squeezing under Robin’s umbrella.

“Thank God you’re always so well prepared!” Strike laughed putting an arm around Robin’s hips as he tried to at least protect his head from the rain, knowing fully-well how his curls would get if they got wet. Robin laughed trying to make room for him and they were soon ringing the bell of the Herberts and, between laughter, shouting and begging for them to open up.

“What a pair!” Nick smiled at them opening the door. “Come on in, fast!” Nick shut the door close after them, leaving the downpour outside, and shook his head looking at them with a chuckle, taking their damp jackets and hanging them. “You can remove your shoes if you wish. Oh, and nice to meet you, I’m Nick.” He smiled politely shaking Robin’s hand.

“The pleasure is mine,” said Robin smiley as always.

“Cliché,” murmured Strike jokingly with a side smile, making her roll her eyes.

“Oh hello!” Ilsa had arrived, kissed Strike’s cheek briefly and shook Robin’s hand, keeping her cool perfectly fine. “I’m Ilsa, hope you two didn’t get too soaked, we have a drier if you want to dry anything…”

“Nah, I’m good, Cormoran parked right by the door,” Robin smiled. “So you’re the fan.” Ilsa blushed.

“Well I do like top quality acting,” said Ilsa sympathetically. Robin looked flattered.

“Thank you!”

“Uncle Corm, Uncle Corm!” an excited scream came and a little toddler with dark curls came running to Strike’s legs, followed by another one a bit smaller and with a pacifier in his mouth. Strike scooped them up in his strong arms, impressing Robin with his strength.

“What are you two doing here?”

“We had a play date with Mackenzie and invited them for dinner since they were already here,” Ilsa explained. Strike nodded.

“Well, Robin...” said Strike. “Let me introduce you to four-year-old James and soon-to-be three-year-old Jack. My elder nephews.” He explained. “Boys, this is my friend Robin.”

“Hi handsome!” Robin smiled stroking Jack’s cheek and high-fiving James. “You two are so adorable, God...”

They went inside and Strike kissed his sister’s cheek and shook Greg’s hand. They were sitting on a sofa with little Jason, who was only eight-months-old and was sitting on the floor playing with his toys. He squealed at them with his two teeth and introductions were made before Robin ran to play with Jason and the other boys. Mackenzie was just playing next to Jason, both sitting on their own already. The mums were already joking they might be the new Strike and Ilsa, who were only an exact month apart, making Ilsa the eldest.

“Oh you’re good with kids, planning on having any yourself?” Lucy chuckled at Robin. She was a lot like their father, with sparkling blue eyes directed kindly at the youngest woman. Robin was already surrounded by excited children making drawings for them on sheets of paper.

“Ha, my husband is dying for it,” Robin smiled at Lucy from her place sitting on the carpeted floor. “I don’t feel ready though. It’s hard for an actor to decide when to do those things, means slowing down your career and never knowing if you’ll still be remembered by your employers later. But eventually, I’d love to be a mum.”

“You’re still young, there’s time,” Lucy encouraged. Robin giggled.

“Tell that to my mother...” Robin joked making them laugh. Strike, who was still stiff around little children, preferred not to come too close to them, despite before his daughter’s death, he would’ve.

“So what’s this thing the magazines are talking about?” Lucy asked looking at her brother, who stood near a bookshelf, always attracted to literature. “Mum was freaking out, said you weren’t taking her calls.”

“Mum called?” Strike frowned pulling his phone. He had several missing calls. “Fuck, I left the phone on silence... I’ll call her later, promise. It’s nonsense, really. They’re just in for morbid stories and speculation about Robin’s life and whoever’s close to her.”

“I’m deeply sorry for the inconveniences I’ve caus...” Robin started towards Lucy.

“Sush you, this isn’t your fault!” said Lucy calmly. “We know them journalists, our mother had a band in her youth, ‘Polaris’.”

“That Leda Strike is your mother?” Robin’s eyes widened. “Oh shit now I see the resemblance, you’ve got her same eyes!” she looked at Strike, flipping. He snorted a laugh.

“You know them?” Lucy asked surprised.

“Of course, my eldest brother is a huge fan, he was only like, fifteen when the band stopped, but he kept listening to his discs his entire teenage years, insisted I knew them. They were pretty great, why did they break-up?”

“You can thank my brother for that,” Lucy looked fondly at Strike, who sighed and gave Lucy a ‘don’t go there’ look, since Robin didn’t know.

“What did you do?” Robin asked Strike playfully.

“Nothing,” Strike hurried to say. “Lucy means it was 1997, when our father was killed. Our mother decided she had to focus on her children, she was already a nurse so she just left the band to focus and have more time for us. I was the one who talked her into it.” He lied only very slightly. Robin’s eyebrows raised and she nodded.

“Of course, it was the responsible thing to do,” Robin nodded, absentmindedly caressing Jason’s unruly dark curls. “You’ve got thick curls don’t you honey?” she smiled down at the baby.

“They run in the family,” Strike smiled. “So Nick, where’s the beer?”

Strike had time for a brief call to his mother to assure her he was perfectly fine before they sat down for lunch, Mackenzie and Jason going for a nap and James and Jack sitting next to their parents and eating like good boys. James, however, soon started playing with his food and his father chastised him.

“James Everett Keaton, what have I told you about playing with food?” said Greg, Lucy’s husband, sternly but without raising his voice. James pouted but obeyed. Robin smiled at the boy.

“Everett, such an uncommon name isn’t it?” Robin commented.

“James is named after our father,” Lucy explained. “Everett James Strike, we just changed the order to avoid confusion and because Greg liked James better.” She added friendly. Robin nodded.

“I like uncommon names. Like Cormoran, where’s that from?”

“A Cornish giant according to some legend,” said Strike.

“Pretty accurate,” laughed Robin in reference to his size, making him chuckle.

“What’s Robin for?” Nick asked, curious.

“Are you kidding me?” Robin showed off her hair and Nick chuckled, nodding.

“So, how’s this lawsuit going?” asked Ilsa. “Going to court? I can help out...”

“That’s very kind of you Ilsa, but it’s actually quite resolved already,” said Robin. “We’re avoided courtroom. Cormoran rejected their economic compensation but we made a deal with the magazine that we wouldn’t ruin the shit out of them if they retired the numbers with the pictures, issued a public apologize that’s coming in tomorrow’s number and it’s already on the website, and never do this again. They said they took the pictures off the internet, so they thought they were available, by the way.” She added looking at Strike, who frowned.

“The internet? We didn’t post any pictures of our wedding or our daughter in there...” Strike frowned. He pulled his phone and googled himself. Took some searching, but since his wife and daughter shared his surname, eventually he found a link to his wife’s family’s website announcing the wedding of their daughter to Strike, accompanied with the wedding picture, and also a photo of his daughter posted just a few months before during his daughter’s birthday by the maternal grandmother in her very public facebook profile. “Sweet mother of God, it was Charlotte’s family! They never even asked permission, they have a photo of our wedding in their fucking website as if they were the royal family, and Tula goes and posts a photo of Waves in her freaking public facebook in memoriam on her birthday. I am going to kill her, I took that photo, is my property, the fuck she thinks she’s doing?”

“Stick, love,” Lucy looked at him sternly. “The language in front of the children?” Strike looked up at her and then at the boys and nodded in realisation.

“You’re right. Uncle Corm is very impolite boys, do not imitate my language.” The boys weren’t even paying attention.

“Wait so your own family posted them?” Robin was confused. Strike shook his head, leaving his phone and returning to the steak in his plate.

“Charlotte, my wife... she’s... was...” he corrected himself. “A socialite, a Campbell. Her father was an academic and broadcaster and her mother, Tula, was an actress, a famous one.”

“Of course, Tula... Tula Clermont, right? From ‘It Girl’? I didn’t know she had a daughter,” confessed Robin. Strike nodded.

“Only one, my wife. But they never got along, Charlotte hated her entire family, they were all very snobbish, I didn’t like them either. They barely even knew our daughter Waverly yet when...” Strike made a weird hand gesture. “Tula went to the media and put her best tragic grandma number for the press, gave them the entire morbid story, I wouldn’t be surprised if she was collaborating with the press. She said shit about me, she gave insight on the funeral and the services, she made a pity party because she had become a widow just a year before. She never played with Waverly, we gave her one chance and she spent the entire ‘play-date’ putting her service to play with the kid, so we took her away from the Campbells forever. I was furious, obviously. And now this...” Strike shook his head. Robin frowned deeply.

“That’s dirty game, she’s making money out of this?”

“It wouldn’t be strange. She made a f...” Strike looked at his nephews and interrupted himself. “A documentary when cancer killed Anthony, the only one Charlotte and I got along with, of course. Charlotte was this close to suing her, but Waves was just a baby so... I persuaded her to just ignore it. We had more important things to think of.”

“You could sue that woman,” Ilsa was thirsty for justice, as a good Libra. “You should.”

“And you’d make some money,” added Greg. Strike shrugged tiredly, looking down at his food without much hunger anymore.

“I’m not going to lose my time and energy with lawsuits,” said Strike. “But I know how to threaten that woman. Charlotte told me things Tula would never want to know, I can ruin her entire life’s reputation effortlessly. And Tula is just an old b... bee.” Strike looked at the nephews again. He was once again on his phone, reading Tula’s facebook post about Waverly. “Just look at this trash, is unbelievable... ‘ _we will all miss her beautiful gray eyes and the way she babbled so adorably..._ ’ one, Waverly’s eyes weren’t even gray, they were green like mine, and pretty dark to be confused, and two, she was talking before she was a year old, so no babbling there.” He commented angrily.

“Sweetheart,” Ilsa took his phone and turned it off. “Don’t give her the attention she doesn’t deserve, okay? You’re just tormenting yourself.” 

“What would you do if it was your daughter, Ilsa?” Strike murmured tiredly. “You can’t even imagine a world in which she’s been squashed by a truck let alone having someone talking about her as if she gave a shit when she never did. My mother played with Waverly, my mother babysat her, my mother bought her toys and knew her favourite books. Tula doesn’t deserve being called a grandma.”

“We all agree,” Ilsa nodded, squeezing his arm. “But there’s nothing you can do aside from talking things with Tula and try not to think about it because we all know what happens then.” She gave him a knowing look and he nodded. Lucy and Greg’s boys asked for permission to play and ran to the garden.

“Cormoran,” said Robin softly. “If you need some days off to sort things out, I’m happy to give them to you...” she offered gently.

“It’s okay, Robin, but thank you. You’ve been great,” Strike looked gratefully at him.

“Yeah, not like those snobs that give us allergy,” Nick smiled at her, making her giggle.

“Well we’re back to work tomorrow then,” said Robin with a satisfied nod. “Once you’ve spoken with Tula, of course. No hurry, I just have an interview in the afternoon.” Strike nodded.

“Must be exciting, being an actress,” commented Greg over his dish.

“Oh, it’s something,” said Robin. “I wish for some relaxation at times. What do you work at, Lucy?” she asked full of curiosity.

“I’m an aerospace engineer,” answered Lucy with a hint of pride in her voice. Robin’s eyebrows raised and she looked amazed.

“Woah! Isn’t that about building spaceships?”

“A bit of everything,” said Lucy. “I’m currently embarked in the elaboration of a wing for a NASA aircraft indeed, but most of the time it’s just normal aircraft like Boeings and touristic airplanes.”

“So cool, a doctor, a lawyer, an aerospace engineer and even a... you were a quantity surveyor, right Greg? Someone who can make us a house,” Robin chuckled. “You guys have by far the coolest jobs.”

“What about me?” Strike asked jokingly as the others giggled. Robin looked at him jokingly as if saying ‘oh well...’, with a little shrug. “I saved your butt at a movie premiere, how many people get to see a movie premiere?”

“How many people get to walk inside a spaceship?” Robin returned with a chuckle. “But don’t worry, your job is somewhat cool too, you have a gun. The boys must flip about that.”

“The boys hardly understand their uncle,” Greg giggled. Lucy rolled eyes but smiled.

“And what kind of medicine do you do, Nick?” Robin added, still fuelled by curiosity, her dinner almost forgotten.

“General,” Nick answered. “I’m a physician actually.”

“Look if you’re not going to eat that...” Strike grabbed Robin’s hand and she slapped it away.

“Shoo! You have your own!” Robin chuckled. “You eating machine...”

The dinner ended between laughter and then Strike and Robin left, not wanting to be home too late. Strike had time for a bit of small talk with Ilsa to calm his senses down while Robin phoned Matt and let him know of her whereabouts, but shortly after they were walking to Strike’s car. Strike felt warm inside after the evening, and every time he looked at Robin and saw how happy and relaxed she looked, her face familiarly sleepy with the hour of the day and the shadow of a laugh still present in her features, he just felt a little warmer. He was almost by Battersea Bridge, which crossed the Thames on the way to Kensington to pick up Matthew before going to Richmond-upon-Thames, the London borough where the Cunliffes lived, when he noticed he had been followed.

He didn’t want to alter Robin, but he was sure a black truck driven by someone with a suit and sunglasses had been after their heels for the last five minutes, although it could just be that he needed to cross the bridge too, so Strike manoeuvred between some small streets instead of going directly to the bridge. Robin, too sleepy to notice and not knowing Wandsworth much, said nothing, and Strike thought he had dodged the car until he started to enter Battersea Bridge.

“Robin,” said Strike then, softly, not wishing to scare her.

“Hummm?”

“Don’t panic, but there’s a black Toyota following us,” said Strike calmly. Robin looked at him with a light frown and then twisted to look back.

“I see,” she said then, pretending she had gone to check something in the backseat in a smart move so the car wouldn’t think they had noticed them. Strike admired her silently.

“I want you to quickly but calmly slid into the back seat, can you do it? Sit in the middle seat and put on your seatbelt alright?” he indicated calmly. Robin did as she was asked without making any questions, yet Strike answered as if she had made them. “It’s the safest seat in a car, avoid collisions coming from the sides and avoid eating the front of the car.”

“All right,” Robin took a deep breath. “Should I call someone?”

“No, just lower the windows so the class doesn’t break and hurt you if anything happens, and use your scarf to cover yourself so the belt doesn’t cut you if I have to do any brusque movements,” Strike indicated just as calmly, opening his own window and the one of the co-pilot seat, as the traffic had them stopped on the road for a bit. Robin did as she was told.

“What are we going to do?” Robin asked.

“We’re going to continue normally and once we cross the bridge I’ll make them get lost. But right now there’s too much traffic jam to get out of here.”

“Okay.”

“We just need to prevent in case he tries to get us off the road hitting us all right?”

“Okay...”

“Don’t worry about a thing, I’ve got you.”

“I know.” Robin reached a hand and squeezed the upper part of Strike’s arm.

Strike continued driving as slowly as the traffic jam demanded. There was just one lane in each direction, so Strike had no option but to be patient. Robin observed through the window.

“The tide’s gone out,” said Robin. “Look, there’s a small beach there. Ugh, so full of crap...” Strike snorted a laugh.

“I like the things that come to your mind under tense situations.” Robin giggled.

“I’m not tense. I’ve got you.” Strike felt touched inside and smiled foolishly.

“Thanks...”

“Look, the lane in the other direction is not in a jam anymore,” said Robin looking to her right. Strike looked too and saw that, indeed, there were no cars busying it anymore, the traffic passing fluently. The bridge was mostly a road bridge and it had just short, fragile-looking, iron fence on the sides of the road, followed by a very short wall on the sides of the bridge.

It was a cute bridge, but Strike felt a bit claustrophobic with so many cars and such little space. He was glad the windows were open so the chilly air that was always present around the Thames filled his car. It was rather cold. Then suddenly he saw the Toyota that had been following move (illegally) into the other lane and speed, ignoring the other cars’ claxon bleeping, and after turning a little to the right to get strength, the car crashed full force against Strike’s. Robin yelled and Strike grunted as he took most of the hit. Strike tried to drive away, but he was just packed. People were hitting their claxons a lot, and then he heard it; the air-piercing sound of a shoot.

“He’s shooting us!” Robin yelled.

“Head down!” Strike shouted in return. But the bullets were just directed to their wheels, and Strike felt them deflate. Then another hit came and they crashed against the fence, the right side of their car rising a little in the air as the left side hit the fence so forcefully. “Get ready! We’re going to the water!”

“What?!”

“Ready!” Strike managed to turn the car to the right side and position so when the third hit of the other car came it hit right in the middle of the right side of their car, the force pushing them to the left side again, and this time, as Strike tried to help by turning everything to the left, their car flipped over the fences and fell into the river.

 

 


	7. Don't go with him

“Seatbelts off and get out through the windows!” roared Strike right before their car hit the water with such force he really had to ignore the pain coming from his neck as he fumbled with the seatbelt. “Thirty seconds Robin, hurry!” he shouted again, fumbling with his belt and looking back. Water was already up to their knees, the front more sunk than the back. Luckily their car had flipped in the air and they had fallen standing.

Robin was already without a belt and hurrying to her window, moving clumsily because of the water.

“I don’t know if I’m going to be able to fight the force of the current coming into the car, it’ll suck me back in!” Robin yelled trying to get out of her window.

“You will! Just swim as hard as you can and don’t long back, swim to the beach! Don’t think of the pain or anything, just swim as hard as you can, kick your legs as if there was no tomorrow!” Strike kept shouting as he moved to the back seat to push Robin out, the water already up to his chest. 

The window wasn’t very big but luckily Robin was thin enough and she could get out, Strike getting his hands out of the window pressing them firmly against the floor of Robin’s feet to give her one last hard push of leverage and get her out. The water was coming quickly and already up to his neck brown and sandy, so he took a deep breath with his nose against the ceiling, the smell of car filling his nostrils, and sank, eyes barely opened as the water and the debris in it hurt his pupils and made them hard to open.

The water was freezing. Strike knew he wouldn’t fit through the back window and that the most he had ever been capable of holding his breath had been sixty seconds, and that while being calm, not full of adrenaline with his heart pumping so hard it hurt. He swam to the front of the car barely able to see anything and fumbled trying to open the door, but it wasn’t opening. The car was sinking fast. He couldn’t see Robin either. He got into the hole of the front-left window and started getting out, hearing his heart in his brain and the cold he, Cornishman to his bones, wasn’t used to, almost paralysing him, making his moves slowly. He was almost out of the car when suddenly he was stuck. He couldn’t keep getting out and his heart started beating harder as he panicked, and suddenly he couldn’t see more than brown and then light... 

Then he saw a flash of red, felt a pull from his shirt, and his face hit the air.

“Come on Cormoran! Breathe for me! Come on!” Strike coughed and gasped for air and then felt Robin’s arm wrapped firmly around his armpits as she tried to squeeze his chest to make compressions while swimming on her back. Strike fumbled clumsily and was able to start swimming. “That’s my boy!” Robin smiled at him. Strike felt the headache of his life coming, and was so cold, but he was able to swim next to Robin, who kept encouraging him. “Kick those legs, warm up! That’s it! Keep swimming! Don’t think of anything else!” she swam and shouted, Strike didn’t know with which energy, like a captain of a sinking boat. “We’re almost there! Just think of Waverly! Think she’s waiting for you in the coast!”

And Strike swam. He swam harder than he had ever swam, and soon, Robin was pulling from him, both clumsily holding onto each other as they crawled onto the muddy, sandy, mini-beach, their hands and feet grasping debris and plants and sinking like if it was quicksand until finally, they collapsed by a wall full of seaweed and Strike coughed more water out as he shook with the cold and the rain falling again as it had done all day. He looked around and Robin was already moving, removing all of her clothes and shoes until she was in her underwear, and then quickly trying to remove his.

“N-no o-offence R-Robs,” Strike trembled, feeling his entire body shaking like a leaf. “N-not t-time f-for s-sex...” he tried to joke with a smile. Robin smiled vaguely at him with purple lips.

“T-the c-clothes a-are s-soaked,” she explained, her shaking fingers fumbling with the buttons of his shirt. “B-better o-out...” He understood and tried to clumsily help, ignoring the feelings at seeing her nude –he really hadn’t had any action in the last three months, since living with her, not having time- until they were both in underwear. “K-keep m-moving!” Robin encouraged, getting up and putting her hair up in the boss of messy bums to avoid it dripping cold water on her back. She jumped a little, but Strike couldn’t move, the adrenaline coming down and being replaced by the outmost pain from his right pelvis and leg. The car had hit them directly on one and a half occasions, so something was probably broken. Robin noticed and knelt next to him, covering his upper body with her own.

“W-what...?”

“B-body heat!” Strike reacted and wrapped his arms around her.

He didn’t know how long they were squeezing each other and feeling each other shaking like a leaf, but all he could think of was that if the people from the RMS Titanic could do it, they weren’t going to be any less. And eventually, a boat, their own particular RMS Carpantia, came into the rescue.

**. . .**

“Hi you...” Strike’s eyes opened to a smiley Robin. Her lips were red again and Strike felt like kissing them. She smiled, her hair dry and strawberry-blonde, as if he had put the moon in the sky, and he was far too drowsy and tired to think. It was as if his mind was just fogginess. “How are you feeling?” Robin caressed his bearded face gently. Strike observed he was in a hospital bed, that the room was deliciously warm and the light was so dimly, just coming from a horizontal bar stuck to the wall over his head, pointing white light to the ceiling. Robin was wearing her dry and clean clothes, that he recognised because he sort of knew her wardrobe.

“I’m...” Strike thought about it. Tired? Zombie? Worn-out? “What happened?” he asked inside, sounding clear in his mind and then hearing himself barely pronouncing. But Robin smiled bigger and nodded in understanding.

“A black Toyota collided with us, pushed your car out of the Battersea Bridge and into the river Thames. You got me out of the car and then we swam to the shore, where a boat found us and took us into the road, where an ambulance was waiting. You needed emergency surgery to repair a splinter of your right pelvis bone, they said you need to lie down and rest so the wound heals. Matthew came and Martha came and brought us dry clothes, yours are in the closet,” she pointed to a closet nearby. “I just showered and they told me you were out of surgery. I called Lucy and Nick, they’re coming. And the guy who drove the Toyota into us shot himself to death. He had shot our wheels too. The firemen already got your car out of the water, but I advice you buy a new one.” She added jokingly.

“God...” Strike tried to rub the sleep off his face. “I need to go home... I want to go back home...” God how much he hated hospitals.

“I know,” Robin caressed his face softly. “But you need to be a big boy and stay here a little okay? They’ll probably send you home in the morning, I told them where you live there’s plenty of people to look after you. Are you in pain? Do you need any more painkillers?”

“More? I don’t want painkillers at all, why would they give me any?” Strike slurred. Robin looked at him in confusion.

“Sweetie you just had surgery, they gave you some painkillers, otherwise you’d be clenching your teeth.”

“No...” Strike tried to sit up. “I can’t... I can’t be given any meds Robin, don’t you understand? I can’t be in a hospital, I need to go.” He tried to sit up and Robin gently pushed him back into bed.

“You need to rest,” she insisted. “Come on Cormoran, just one night, close your eyes and try to sleep okay? Please...” she put a hand on his face again but he brushed aside, trying to get up again.

“Hey,” Nick and Lucy had just arrived. Strike stopped moving and looked at them.

“Oh my God Corm!” Lucy ran to him and hugged him. “Are you okay?”

“He’s fine, he’s just insisting on leaving,” Robin smiled warmly at Cormoran. “You guys are going to need to keep an eye on him.”

“You good?” Nick looked at Robin with a concerned frown.

“Yeah, all thanks to Cormoran, he kept me safe. I just have a bit of bruising from the seatbelt and my neck hurts a little but the doctors said I was perfectly fine,” Robin nodded.

“Can we leave now baby?” Matt had entered the room. “It’s bloody three in the morning...”

“One second Matt dear,” Robin gave him a quick peck on the lips. “This is my husband Matthew. Matt, this is Doctor Herbert and Lucy, Cormoran’s best friend and sister.”

“Oh, nice to meet you,” Matthew politely shook their hands. “I’m sorry, but we need to keep going if we want to catch any sleep.”

“’Course, see you Robin, glad you’re okay!” Lucy smiled at Robin.

“I need to go!” Strike shouted, tired of being ignored. They looked at him, startled. “I’m Robin’s bodyguard and someone almost killed us both, I must be with her...”

“Cormoran sweetie,” Robin squeezed his arm gently. “Police will escort us home and will be surrounding the house for a few days, DI Wardle is investigating this, police’s got this.” Strike frowned, feeling substituted. “You need to rest and recover, and don’t worry about a thing, I’ll be safe. Whenever you’re ready I’ll love having you back and I’ll make sure everything is ready so when you’re discharged you can come home and the service can attend your needs.” She was so sweet and kind but didn’t understand how Strike was feeling.

“You can’t fire me now...” Strike argued, sitting up with a hiss from his pelvis.

“Oh, darling, I won’t fire you at all!” Robin frowned, shaking her head. “I’m just saying you won’t be able to work for a few days until your pelvis is healed and that in the meantime you don’t need to worry because police’s with me and nothing’s going to happen. When you’re discharged you come home and when you’re healed you’ll be welcomed back to action, of course.”

“Robin,” Strike looked at her in all seriousness. “I don’t think you realise we were shot today, that someone followed us for a good while after dinner, someone threw our car off the fucking bridge and we would’ve been dead if I hadn’t casually watched a documentary about what to do if your car sinks in water years ago and remembered it! And the fact that the responsible shot himself indicates he was probably working for someone else. This was premeditated, Robin. Someone gave orders to take our car off the road and kill us. Someone paid money to see you dead. And you’re just going to trust some cops hanging by your door? They could be in this, as far as we’re concerned!”

“Oggy mate, why don’t you calm down a little uh? Robin knows what she’s doing and police will do their job and keep her safe, this is their life, they’re experts,” Nick assured looking kindly at Cormoran.

“Yeah Corm, relax, Robin can survive the night just fine...” Lucy kissed the top of Strike’s head trying to force him back into bed.

“But...” Strike tried to reply, anguished. He was sure someone was going to kill her, they had almost managed it. “Robin, please... why don’t you stay here just for tonight uh? Please, stay here so I can...”

“Cormey...” Robin sat on the verge of the bed and hugged him softly. “It’s all right, I promise you I’ll be okay. I won’t leave the house if that makes you feel better.” She promised squeezing him softly. Strike looked at Matthew over Robin’s shoulder, and didn’t like one bit the way Matthew looked at them with a clenched jaw and cold eyes. Matthew, that had asked them to pick them up for the first time ever, putting them in the direction to get killed, Matthew, who always called a limo, Matthew, who every month destined a few thousands of their income to expenses vaguely justified as ‘personal expenses’ like ‘paying a secretary’, like, how much did the fucking secretary earn, for the love of God? Matthew would earn so much money if Robin died. Strike’s arms were rigid and he couldn’t let her go. “Corm, please, let me go sweetie.”

“He’s going to kill you,” Strike hissed. “Matthew’s after all of this, I know, he’s going to kill you Robin, you won’t make it to the morning, you’ll be locked in a house with your murderer while police hangs outside unbeknownst to it all...”

“Oh come on now,” Matthew laughed dryly. “What did the doctor give him? He’s losing it, no offence...”

“Cormoran you know I’m not happy when you trash talk about the man I love,” Robin said harshly finally pulling apart and getting up. “We’ll be leaving now and I’ll attribute this to your medicines and we’ll talk tomorrow. I’ll pass by to check on you and I’ll pick you up if you’re discharged.” She said walking towards Matthew and looking back. “Sleep well right? Goodnight Lucy, Nick... sorry for all of this.”

“It’s fine,” Lucy smiled a little.

“Robin you fool!” Strike glared at Robin. “I was Military Police Investigator for nine years, I know the fuck I’m saying, why don’t you trust me?! You’re being stupid!”

“Don’t insult my wife, you...” Matthew clenched his teeth harder, looking at him.

“Cormoran,” Robin looked coldly at him. “I trust you with my life. Maybe is time you trust me a little.”

“You know things no one else does, that should tell you how much I trust you, but you are wrong in this,” said Strike. “You think you know everything and you don’t, you think you can trust him and you can’t, you hired me to figure things out trusting my experience, trusting that I’ve caught soldiers way more intelligent and skilled than your husband, and now you refuse to hear me out like a stupid little snob!” he kept raising his voice but Robin and Matthew were already gone. “Robin!” he roared towards the door. “Robin! ROBIN, COME BACK I SAID! LISTEN TO ME, YOU STUPID GIRL!” he went to get off the bed but the pain was so great he shouted and fell back into bed. Next he knew, a doctor was putting something into his IV and everything went black.

 


	8. Quitting

“What? You’re resigning?!”

In the morning the rain fell with lesser strength and Robin, who was indeed alive, had come to the hospital to visit him, although he was actually being discharged after signing himself out, still bitter and angry towards Robin. He hadn’t slept all night on his own, only with medicines, thinking of Robin.

“What you heard,” Strike snapped. Robin frowned, exchanging a confused look with Lucy. She couldn’t help but feel he was quitting in their friendship too, which made her want to cry.

“Why?” she asked in a small voice.

“This is the deal with me, Mrs Cunliffe,” Strike glared at Robin, limping slightly as he stepped a little towards her. He had a small, clean iliac fracture, his surgery had been minimally invasive and short, so he could walk with the help of a cane to support his weight and not put too much on his pelvis. The new way of talking to her made a lump in her throat. “I’m an experienced military veteran, I’m skilled, I’m intelligent, and I always do my job right without quitting until it’s done right, I will devote all my time and exhaust myself to protect someone, but if I’m disrespected then I’m sorry but I’m not standing for that.”

“I disrespected you? You called my husband a murderer and me stupid!”

“Because you are! And insolent!” Strike shook his head in annoyance. “I’ve invested all my time in you Robin, all of my fucking time, putting your first and leaving my own life aside, letting press exploit my life, for you to now think you know better than me, pass from what I’ve found out through countless hours of investigation and observation, completely ignore me and recklessly risk your own life that is my responsibility to protect! Do you have any idea the night I’ve spent?! How I would’ve felt if you had died?!”

“You know, perhaps you should stop thinking you’re better than everyone else and listen to me when I tell you Matt wouldn’t kill a fly! In case you haven’t noticed, you were wrong, I’m perfectly fine, he wasn’t the bad guy! I’m throwing my money away paying someone who’s too focused on my husband to see the real danger! What is it, Cormoran, are you jealous of him, is that what this is?” Robin had gotten pissed too and she didn’t feel that scared at Strike’s sudden angry glare, so fierce she almost stepped back.

“Jealous?!” Strike laughed dryly. “MY WIFE DIED THREE YEARS AGO! MY DAUGHTER DIED! DO YOU THINK I FEEL LIKE LOSING YOU TOO?!” He shouted so big a doctor came to sternly tell them to get out, so they walked outside fuming and the argument continued in the hospital garden. “I’ll let you know there’s only one love in my life, don’t think so big of yourself, little brat!” he shouted then, pointing angrily at her. Lucy, Martha and Nick just stood nearby, trying to ignore what was going on. “If you know things so well, why did you even hire me?! Go and defend yourself all by yourself, don’t make me waste my fucking time and energy and disrespect my nine years of experience as a soldier, and the almost three years of bodyguard experience telling me I’m wrong and that you know better with all the effort I’ve devoted to you!”

“I need you!” Robin shouted angrily, with tears in her eyes. “You can’t just leave now! You’re my friend!”

“If I was your friend you would’ve stayed and heard me out last night Robin.” He said firmly. Robin looking at him pleadingly.

“And what about you uh? You refuse to hear me out, you only have eyes on Matt and you can’t accept that you’re wrong...”

“I know I’m not wrong and for your information, I keep my eyes on five people at the same time, not just Matthew, so I look more than at him just in case I am wrong.”

“Do you really?” Robin asked sarcastically.

“Yes! Who do you think I am? I keep a thorough investigation of your life and whereabouts and everyone who comes and goes, I make a suspects list, I keep track on each suspect with all the proof and I’m telling you right now, proof says Matthew’s winning, not me. Any courtroom would give me the reason, I’ve got enough for police to interrogate him and keep him 36h arrested if you even listened to me. I made an objective investigation and as much as I tried to prove it wasn’t Matthew, and I tried for you, evidence kept going back to him! But of course, you know better!”

“So that’s how much our friendship means to you? The moment things don’t go the way you want you quit? Oh, that’s perseverance, too much for someone who cares so much about me uh?!”

“Well excuse me if I love myself enough to not stand to be treated in these ways.”

“Then GO!” Robin pointed to the door fence. “Go and never come back! You want to resign?! I guarantee you won’t hear a word from me again, you disloyal prick!” Strike laughed dryly.

“Prick?! Oh, that hurts,” he mocked her simply out of desire to hurt her for the worry he had been through all night and the frustration he felt. “Is that even a real insult?” Robin’s eyes filled with tears, something he couldn’t understand, and she walked to him, and pushed him so hard he had to use the cane to avoid falling.

“You’re insufferable!” shouted Robin angrily. “No wonder your wife cheated on you, you know? I would be looking for something better to fuck too, you old fart!” she knew she had fucked up right away, just by seeing Strike’s face. Nick and Lucy, who of course had no idea about what Charlotte had done, frowned and looked confused. “Let’s go Martha!” Robin shouted, and stormed out of there. Martha followed suit.

**. . .**

Strike was moody the rest of the day, hanging alone in his flat. Nick and Lucy had been so thoughtful and kind to go pick up all of his things from Robin’s, after having been convinced that what Robin had said about Charlotte cheating wasn’t true and just came out of trying to hurt him, and then Strike begged to be left alone in the flat he had barely visited for three months for the rest of the day. In the hospital they had given him drugs without knowledge of his past as an addict, and now, as Strike was furious and dealt with his wife and daughter’s death anniversary, that was happening right on the following day but for which he was already feeling bad, thanks to the fight with Robin, it was easy to fall back into old habits. Receiving meds in the hospital provoked that he spent most of the day having withdrawal symptoms because of the sudden stop of their use, and alcohol was, this time, not enough to calm himself and help with the throbbing pain from his pelvis.

There was someone in Strike’s life who had remained as a dear friend along the years, however not someone Strike could trust with anything worth money. Shanker had lost his mother as a toddler, had never known his dad and lived with an uncle and aunt in Whitechapel, London. He was the same age as Strike and he had been twelve when he got wounded participating in drug dealing with his older cousins and Leda had found him in Whitechapel and helped him like only a mother could. Ever since, Shanker remained close to the family, often passing by and helping Leda as much as he could once Mr Strike passed, even given them money Strike didn’t know where it came from. He had been the one to provide Strike drugs when Everett Strike had died, unbeknownst to everyone except them both. Shanker had innocently thought it’d help Strike, and when he had realised of his mistake, after they had almost killed Strike, he had compromised with helping Strike get back on the right road, even if he couldn’t do it for himself. Strike had needed a lot of persuasion to convince Shanker to sell him some three years prior, when the car accident had occurred, and Shanker had done it only with the condition of only giving him enough to get slightly high if combined with alcohol, but in no life-threatening danger. This condition was re-used this time around, and now Strike lied in his bed, high as fuck, with a bottle of whiskey empty next to him, and crying out of frustration, sadness, angry, and hate towards himself for relapsing. His family would kill him if they knew.

In dreams, Strike often had fun with his daughter Waverly, way more than with Charlotte, with whom he hardly dreamed. Waverly hadn’t started appearing in his dreams until about a year after her death, and then Strike had been happy with seeing her, hearing her, touching her, a couple times a month. Now it was rare to dream with her and it wasn’t so vivid anymore, but was enough to keep him afloat.

“Daddy,” twenty-eight-year-old Strike tried to teach eight-months-old Waverly in the video in front of his older version, who looked at the laptop screen with tearful eyes. Being an investigator, love for videos and photography and _evidence_ had engraved in Strike and he had a huge collection about the little one, who in the video, sat on his belly as he lied down, and she made a car pass through the highway of Strike’s hairy belly. Her little dark curls went in all directions. “Can you say daddy, Wavey?”

“Dada!” she smiled big at him with her four teeth, her big eyes looking at him with favouritism.

“Yes!” Strike beamed, taking the kid up into the sky, making her laugh. “That’s right my beautiful sunshine!” he had totally drooled about her, bringing her down to cuddle her and kiss her cheeks.

The video was followed by first steps, first full sentences, first writing of her long name, first Halloweens and Christmases and all else. Strike didn’t leave his flat for an entire week. The hours blurred into days and the days blurred between them so he stopped knowing there were actually different days every time he woke up in the same clothes. His friends knew better than to disturb him, but he made a point on texting everyone back when they texted him to make sure they knew he was fine and didn’t come barging.

After a week, however, and with his pelvis feeling almost new, Strike decided he had enough. He threw to the garbage everything drug-related and alcohol-related, he took out one of his favourite suits and after a nice dinner he made himself, he showered and got into his suit, put on some cologne, brushed his curls neatly, cut his beard short, and put on his shiniest shoes before leaving his flat. He was going to forget about Robin, Charlotte and Waverly in the healthiest way he knew.

“Hello,” he smiled warmly at a blonde woman at the bar, who was drinking a cup with some friends of her. “You smell nice, what’s that, Chanel?” he asked flirtatiously, the women giggling between them, blushing. The blonde smiled at him with sexy blue eyes.

“How’d you know?” she asked drinking from her straw making sure her lips looked their sexiest so Strike could imagine what they’d be around his girth.

“Well I don’t imagine a woman so beautiful would regale herself with anything less,” said Strike with a warm voice. “It’s the ribbon to complete perfection.” The girl blushed and smiled.

“Thank you, you look nice too. Is the suit new?”

“I wish it was, so I didn’t feel so little next to you,” said Strike, leaning to speak into her ear. “You’re lighting the world on fire, girl.”

“Do you really think so?” she asked shyly.

“I could show you so,” he said, his hand pressing into the side of her torso softly. “Oh, don’t tell me you can’t leave your friends so a bit so I can take you out for a dance?” he wasn’t sure his pelvis would be fond of dancing really.

“I suppose I can,” she stood up, smiling at him, and let him take her into the dance floor, swiping her up slowly. He couldn’t move faster, so he pressed her against her, his nose nuzzling into her neck. “The music has a more vivacious rhythm...” she said unsure.

“I’m sorry, but I really wanted to slow-dance with you. Besides, we can have our own music,” he said romantically, pretending his pelvis would allow more movement. She seemed charmed and smiled at him as he grinned at her, pressing their foreheads together. “God, I’m so lucky...” she giggled, her arms around his neck. His phone buzzed in his pocket.

“You’re so romantic.”

“You don’t look like the kind of girl who deserves less. What’s your name, beautiful?”

“Tatiana.”

“Tatiana... sounds exotic and interesting, is that in your personality too?”

“We could say so...” she blushed shyly. “Yours?” He was about to speak when he felt his phone buzz again. Thinking it could be an emergency, he looked at the screen.

“Sorry, my mother’s sick and I’m always keeping an eye and making sure she’s fine, she lives alone and far away so...” he lied for an excuse, making her like him more, awing as she thought he was sweet. It wasn’t Leda, and Strike saw it was actually Robin, so he decided to show her he was perfectly fine without her, and took the call. “Oh, is actually a mate, here, I want to make him envious,” he smiled at Tatiana, who laughed and nodded. “Hi! Mate, I’ve got to introduce you to someone, Tatiana, say h...” but he heard a loud sob, a scream and a bam. Then nothing. His blood froze.

 


	9. The rescue

“CAB!” Strike shouted, stopping one right on time. “I’m a police officer undercover, I need you to get off the cab, this is an emergency, someone’s life’s at risk!” he shouted.

“What are you talking about?” the driver wasn’t having it. Strike rolled eyes. “I want to see your badge.”

“Call 999 but move aside, please,” Strike insisted, shoving his ID into his face. “Cormoran Strike, Royal Military Police veteran, you tell them, but give me the wheel for the mother of God!” the driver moved and immediately phoned 999. Strike drove towards Richmond telling the cab driver the address of the Cunliffes’ and asking him to ask for police and ambulance to go there.

Strike hit the pedal and drove as fast as he could without running anyone over, forgetting every traffic law on the book. The terrified cab driver just sat there holding onto his seat for dear life and Strike’s heart beat hard in his chest, drumming frantically in anguish. The phone call had cut after another noise and Strike had a bad feeling, the same he had had after leaving Charlotte. After far too long, he got into Pembroke Villas by Richmond Green Park, and unceremoniously parked, barging into the house with the key he hadn’t returned to Robin yet.

“Robin!” he shouted as he came in. “Martha!” Strike ran onto the kitchen to grab the longest knife he could find, finding the house spooky without service, which was abnormal. They always took the days off in a way that there was always someone in the house. Police was no longer by the house either, which didn’t help.

He heard a noise upstairs and Robin’s scream.

“Robin!” Matthew sang upstairs in a hair-rising way that made Strike’s heart cringe. “Rooobin!” he repeated. “Where are you, my dear? I’m going to fiiiind you!” Strike was already calling 999 with the old phone he had recycled after his had died in the Thames, and he whispered into the phone.

“My name is Cormoran Strike, I am a Royal Military Police veteran and I’m at Matthew and Robin Cunliffe’s house in Pembroke Villas, in front of Richmond Green Park in Richmond-upon-Thames, London. I’m Mrs. Cunliffe’s bodyguard and I can confirm Matthew Cunliffe here is trying to get us killed, please send help right now. I repeat, Matthew Cunliffe is attempting murder on his own wife at their own house, we are alone, please send help.” He murmured into the phone.

He kept hearing noises like furniture broken, Matthew’s yells probably trying to scare Robin so she’d scream and tell him where she was, and he rushed upstairs as slowly as he could, trying not to make a sound, seeing as if Matthew didn’t seem to have heard him come into the house. He went to the third floor of the house hearing sirens in the street and then heard Robin’s piercing scream.

“I found you!” Matthew laughed loudly in a scary way, and Strike rushed, storming into a room as he heard the noise. Matthew turned around, pointing at him with a shotgun.

“It’s over, Matthew,” Strike couldn’t see Robin, but they were in one of the bedrooms of the service and a big closet was on the floor. Strike feared Robin was inside. The sirens were loud and clear now and Matthew looked at him like a psychopath, his eyes wide. “If you shoot me, police will still see a handful of documents I sent to them this morning listing all the reasons why I’m convinced you’ve been trying to kill your wife for months now. It all started ten months ago, when she modified her will making you the direct recipient of over a billion pounds if anything happened to her. Then you made the decision, didn’t you? That money was worth becoming a murderer. So you’ve tried to kill her ever since.” Matthew started giggling.

“By the time they find me I’ll be in the Caribbean rich like you wouldn’t believe. I already emptied all her accounts into mine. There’s nothing more for you to do here.”

“Hear those sirens?” Strike pointed out.

“Some fire nearby...”

“No. I called the police. My cab driver called the police. The street is filled with it. You won’t make it out of here alive.” Matthew paled and then pressed the trigger. Strike expected a bullet that never came, and then realised Matthew had ran out of bullets, seeing the panic in his face. The bams he had heard had been shootings.

“London Metropolitan Police!” was shouted floors down. “Mr Cunliffe, come out with your hands up where we can see them!” Matthew lost all the colour from his face and Strike smiled big.

“Told you.”

Matthew yelled and, using his shotgun like a baseball bat, tried to hit Strike, who avoided the hit by squatting and punching his knee, which cracked, and Matthew fell backwards with a thud and a guttural scream. Steps could be heard hurrying upstairs.

“Help!” Strike yelled. “I’m Mrs Cunliffe’s bodyguard, help!” he kept shouting as he rushed to the closet. He tried to move it and saw it was heavy as if there was a person inside. He felt about to throw up from the anxiety. He managed to roll the closet so the door faced the ceiling and he opened, finding Robin inside, lying unconscious with blood in her head. “Robin...” he pressed his fingers against her neck, seeing she had a pulse and breathing out in relief. It didn’t look like she had been shot. Police barged into the room pointing guns and lanterns. “Mrs Cunliffe’s here, she’s unconscious, please call an ambulance!”

**. . .**

Strike straightened his tie and checked the enormous bouquet of flowers he held on one arm. There were lilies, marguerites, tulips and roses and it smelled wonderful. His hairy fist knocked on the hospital room’s door and a female voice he didn’t know let him inside. Strike entered slowly, tall and broad and turned to look into the room he hadn’t visited in the two days Robin had been living in it. Strike had been busy handling her bank accounts so the money was back into place, talking with police, giving them all of his report, and talking to Robin’s PR and Agent to ensure her life was properly organised.

Ilsa, Robin’s newest law consultant and advisor, sat next to a woman that, for her looks, could only be Robin’s mother, Linda Ellacott, a woman in her sixties with long white-strawberry-blonde hair falling on her shoulders, and Robin’s blue-gray eyes. Nick stood behind Ilsa in his white coat, since he worked there. Robin’s face was, however, much more like her father’s, who sat on the other side at the head of the bed, opposite his wife. Martha sat next to him.

“Hi,” Strike smiled into the room. The women and Michael Ellacott looked at him fondly. Robin was pale, with a dressing on her forehead and a bandaged hand up to her elbow, but looked happy to see him. “I’m uh, Cormoran. These are for you.” He added looking at Robin.

“Here, I’ll put them in a vase.” Linda stood up and took the flowers from him with a warm smile. “I’m Linda, nice to finally meet you.”

“Indeed,” Strike returned the smile and observed as Linda moved to throw away dead flowers from a vase over a chest of drawers and she put inside the new flowers. “How are you doing?” he added looking at Robin.

“Meh,” Robin half-shrugged. “Can’t sleep much yet. How’s your iliac?”

“Good, although I won’t be playing hula-hoop any time soon,” joked Strike with a half smile. Robin giggled. “I owe you an apology though. I should’ve been more considerate with you. I shouldn’t have left. It was irresponsible and childish of me to rescind our contract and leave you with who I knew was a dangerous person just because things weren’t going the way I wanted. I’m very sorry, Robin. If I had done my job right and been responsible and mature, you would’ve never been hurt like this.” Robin nodded a little and sighed.

“I told you things that were absolutely wrong and offensive,” said Robin softly. “I was in the wrong and I should’ve listened to you months ago when you first told me about Matthew. I acted like a consented little girl and disregarded your experience and your hard-work and then I spoke to you in ways I should’ve never dared to speak to you. I’m very sorry and, if you’d work with me again... I promise to listen to you and give your opinion the importance and relevance it deserves.”

“What a pair of dicks are we, uh?” Strike smiled. “Well, let’s let bygones be bygones, shall we? Friends?” Robin raised her arms for an answer and smiled as Strike, taking advantage of the space Linda had left, leaned to give her a soft hug.

“Do you know anything of him?” Robin asked as they pulled apart, keeping her hands on his arms.

“Yeah,” Strike nodded. “Wardle is an old friend of mine, actually. He was in the Royal Military Police ages ago and we met for a pint to discuss things yesterday. He says Matthew insists I was the one who hurt you and he was the one who came in your defence, but the fact that I was unarmed and several witnesses can confirm I wasn’t even in Richmond at the time of the attack, together with Martha and the rest of the service’s testimonies,” he added giving a nod towards Martha, “was enough to tumble his pathetic defence down. Good news is, this is going to be the fastest trial in the history of the UK, Wardle said they already found evidence that Matthew paid the person who drove into us at Battersea Bridge.”

“So he really is after all of this uh?” Michael frowned. “That son of a...”

“I’m so stupid, I should’ve noticed...” Robin started. Strike scowled at her.

“That’s all we needed, your self-blame,” Strike looked softly at her. “Robin, it’s not your fault that your husband is a monster. You’ve been an exemplar wife trusting him no matter what and standing up for him. He’s been lucky to have someone so good by his side all these years, loving him, and you should never feel lucky for having been such a good person and a good wife.”

“Damn right,” Linda nodded, looking warmly at her daughter. “This wasn’t your fault, sweetheart. Past is past, time to make a clean sheet now.” Robin nodded.

“Right, so...” Robin took off her wedding band and the sapphire engagement ring and gave them to Strike, closing his fist around them. “Would you please get rid of them? Donate them to charity or something... let’s have something good come from what they represent.” Strike nodded, putting them in the pocket of his jacket.

“I will do.”

 

 


	10. Back home

Two months had passed since Matthew had attacked Robin. Although the younger woman could hardly remember the events, they always came back to haunt her at night, which gave her an idea of what had occurred, for the police to put together with the help of the three members of their service, and conclude that Matthew had apparently given them all the day free, encouraging them to leave the house after having agreed with Robin that if someone came to attack her it was better they weren’t home to get hurt. Robin had them gone to take a nap and had woken up later to Matthew pointing at her with a shotgun. He seemed to have wanted to have fun with it, telling her to ‘run’ with a sadistic smile, and she had ran around the house hiding anywhere she could, managing to call Strike from the kitchen phone before Matthew found her and she had to run again. She had fought him at one point, managed to get free and hid inside of a closet in one of the rooms for the service, where Matthew had found her, choosing to hit the closet so it collided with the floor, squashing her and, at the same time, making her hit her head and get a concussion. That had been when Strike had found them.

Strike had barely seen her in two months. Between the necessity to find a new, smaller house that wasn’t a reminder of her trauma, the divorce procedures, the legal procedures against Matthew and the trauma that had her visiting a psychotherapist three times per week, Robin had been very busy, forced to step back from the public life and her compromises and events inside the acting world, and forced to barely seen them. She didn’t feel much like seeing anyone either, she was still rather sad and tired, sleeping badly and had even accepted a two-week holiday in Masham with her family, but now she was back in London and they decided to meet for lunch in the very expensive Gordon Ramsay Restaurant in Chelsea, Robin was inviting. Turns out Mr Ramsay and Robin had met in several occasions and had formed a friendship that led to Ramsay offering Robin a good lunch without the indiscreet glances of the public eye, at a private location.

Breath left Strike’s lips as he entered the restaurant and looked around at the beautiful place with comfortable, nice cushioned seats and round tables with an elegant white tablecloth over a dark blue one.

“Hello,” a suited man smiled to him and Strike identified him as the one in charge of the reservations. Strike straightened his suit and smiled back. “Can I help you?”

“I’m Mr Cormoran Strike, I’m meeting Ms Robin Ellacott for lunch today.” Strike said politely. The man nodded and smiled again.

“Of course, please, follow me this way...” the waiter walked him to a table on a corner separated discreetly from the others with an elegant room divider. “Mr Ramsay commented top discretion was required given Ms Ellacott’s current situation, so if you need anything please use this walkie,” to Strike’s astonishment, the suited-up man handed him a small walkie-talkie. “It’s directly in contact with me to serve you without anyone noticing.” He moved the seat for Strike to sit and Strike did so, still stunned, holding the walkie-talkie. “Ms Ellacott is very dear to us. Always so kind to us. I’ll guide her here when she arrives.”

“Thank you...”

Excitement filled Strike’s mind and stomach for the time being in the ten minutes before Robin arrived. He had arrived rather early, but she was sharp on point and she looked so fragile-yet-fierce Strike could only hug her when they encountered.

“I missed you,” Robin smiled warmly at him.

“Me too,” Strike kissed her cheek on impulse before sitting down with her. “So tell me, what did you do for these people to love you so much?”

“Oh,” Robin shrugged. “My grandparents are best friends with his parents since school, so the both families have always been stuck together and my parents befriended them, I befriended them... we’ve had Christmases together even, went to each other’s weddings... they’re very nice people and Gordon and I always connected very well. I almost studied for chef.”

“Really?” Strike chuckled. “You’re full of surprises. I’m sure you would’ve been a great chef.”

“Thanks,” the waiter came and took their orders. “So how have you been?” her tired blue-gray eyes stared at him with bags under her eyes impossible to mask.

“Well,” Strike shrugged. “Although press did come around a couple times asking questions but... my lips are sealed,” Robin smiled grateful, taking a sip from her cup of water. “How was Masham?”

“Green,” Robin giggled a little. “It was liberating to go around horse-riding though. Spend the days on a horse...” Robin, as Strike knew, had won championships in her childhood for riding horses, training with her uncle Arthur, who had a farm and a horse-riding academy.

“That sounds so wrong out of context,” Strike joked dirtily, making her giggle again, for his pleasure. He started smiling without noticing. “You look happier.”

“I am...” Robin nodded. “I just closed a deal for a new house, I’m more relaxed... and I don’t get startled with flies.” She added with a small smile.

“Good. You deserve a happy and free life. No more threats, right?”

“No more.”

They small-talked until lunch came and they fell in a comfortable silence barely interrupted, as they focused on the meals in front of them. Robin’s physical wounds had healed and Strike kept looking at her, mesmerised by her beauty.

“Will you come with me after lunch to see the house?” Robin asked shyly after a while. “I uh... I know I ask a lot from you, but I wondered if you’d... move back with me, aside from being my bodyguard. I always felt better when we lived together.” She blushed hard and Strike smiled sweetly, ignoring the way his stomach flipped at her request.

“Sure thing,” Strike assured. “I was getting tired of my flat. Doesn’t have birds in it.” He joked raising an eyebrow, making her laugh softly.

“Wasn’t that where you lived with your family?” asked Robin.

“No,” Strike shook his house. “We had a loft in Paddington. Near good schools, you know,” he half shrugged, “I sold it after everything and moved into my tiny flat.” Robin nodded.

“It’s bizarre...” Robin sighed. “I still miss him. Every time I roll in bed at night searching for him unconsciously and not finding him, every time I see a photograph... is like the world falls apart over and over again...” she snorted a bittersweet laugh. “Now I sort of understand how you get with the pictures, I suppose?” Strike stared at her attentively and pressed his lips with a little nod. “Why doesn’t it matter, Corm? Charlotte was a cheater, Matthew’s a bloody psychopath, and why doesn’t it matter for us enough to just forget them and depreciate them the way they deserve? Instead we just keep loving and loving... and they don’t deserve it. I don’t even know if Matthew ever even gave a shit about me or it was all a game, and I studied psychology.” Strike let a long sigh out, pulling his fork down. Robin looked crestfallen, her temple against her closed fist.

“For me uh... I don’t think I’ll ever be capable of hating Charlotte, in fact I think I may even understand her somewhat. I worked a lot and travelled a lot... I did my best to be home more often when Waverly was born, but it was difficult, being in the SIB. She was lonely and found company in somebody else, which doesn’t justify her or makes cheating right but I can see where it came from, so I choose. I can either suffer for the rest of my life tormenting myself for what she did, or forgive her and move on, and I’ve tried my best to do the last thing,” Robin fixed her eyes on him. “Look, marriages are never all perfect or all shit, marriages are teams, and sometimes teams have disagreements and stop working out. I hope Charlotte forgives me for what I did wrong and at the end of the day I forgive her wrongs because I want to think that all the good memories were real, that she did love me for a while, and that our daughter came out of all that love. I cannot forget that she gave me the best thing I ever had. So I try and forgive, love them no matter what, and not to judge someone I love when I don’t know the whole story. I am a loving person and I’m not going to lose that side of me just because life is not always beautiful.”

“Takes enormous strength and courage though,” said Robin in a murmur. Strike nodded.

“It does... and I can’t say that I manage it every day. Some days I’m just an angry, sad person, but that’s life. What matters is that one keeps trying and eventually, we’ll realise we made it, even if we need to stop and just collapse some days. You just keep getting up and swimming no matter what it takes because what else are you going to do?”

“That’s right,” Robin smiled a little. “I guess the only thing I can do is grab the good memories, believe they were real, and move on.”

“Yeah...” Strike shrugged. “You case is tougher because someone did try to kill you repeatedly, which in itself is already traumatic, not to mention it was your own husband, but you’re a tough person, Robin. You know what my grandma Maggie used to say? Even the hardest things are achievable if you pour enough care and hard-work into them.” Robin smiled softly.

“She sounds like a wise woman.”

“She was...” Strike smiled. He saw something flicker in Robin’s eyes as she realised his grandma was dead and he chuckled. “Oh, all of my grandparents are dead. Just my mum, Uncle Ted, Uncle Joan, my cousins Maggie Jr., and Molly, along with my sister’s family, survive. Because, you know, I’m Mr Tragedy.” He joked, making her giggle. “Come on, finish that food and let’s get to that house before my wallet bleeds.” Robin laughed loudly.

**. . .**

An hour later, they were in Robin’s Land Rover as the strawberry-blonde drove down south to Beckenham, Kent, where the house she had just finished furnishing and bought was. Strike commented cheerfully that Beckenham was actually right by Bromley, where his sister lived, so he’d be closer to his family and farther from London’s traffic.

“Are you sure you don’t mind living at the city?” Robin asked unsure while she drove through Wandsworth, as confident as always, no matter the car attack they had suffered months before.

“I’m sure,” Strike smiled warmly at her. He was excited like a child. “How’s the new house?”

“More private, farther from crowds...” Robin smiled a little. “Smaller, although it has a small warm pool inside and four bedrooms, but it only has one sitting-dining room, a small garage, a kitchen, an office, two toilets and then every bedroom has a full en suite bathroom.”

“Only,” Strike mocked with a chuckle, making her giggle.

“Well you know, next to the other one...”

“Yeah.” Strike nodded.

“Only Martha will be living with us this time,” Robin announced. Strike raised his eyebrows.

“How come?”

“Well, while I found a house Jeremy and Mandy went to their own homes and I can’t ask them to move again, I just said look, it’s fine, it’s just me now, I don’t even need them really. Mandy will come do the gardening twice a month, Jeremy will come clean once a week, and Martha will come in the mornings and leave in the afternoons, weekends free. She lives with her daughter. It was always Matt who insisted we needed such big service,” explained Robin. “I like to cook, so I’ll be helping Martha around as much as possible. It’s how I like things.”

“I like it,” Strike nodded. “Martha was the greatest of your service always, and I can help with the garden, cleaning... even cooking. I’m good at... things.” Robin laughed.

“Well I’m glad!”

They arrived to Stone Park Avenue, an area near big parks like Kelsey Park, with green patches of grass to both side and some big trees. There all the houses looked nice, detached and isolated from the street by not just their tall walls covered in plants, but patches of grass, tall bushes and trees, that made the houses hard to even see from the street. Robin turned the car to enter the garage path to their new house, and Strike stretched looking around like a curious cat for Robin’s delight. The house was two floors big, the lower floor was the bigger, including the attached garage, and was of a warm brick, the second floor painted white outside with stripes of dark wood forming rectangles on the façade, the ceiling consistent of dark tile.

Robin parked inside the small garage and instead of getting inside the house using the connecting door, they exited so Strike could see the surroundings. The front garden was huge, wild, untamed, and Strike smiled at it. The other house had been too neat, too perfect to the detail, and this one was more proper of a Yorkshirewoman raised in a farm, all wild and beautifully perfect. It was like living on a forest inside a city.

“What do you think?” asked Robin unsure.

“It’s very you,” Strike smiled warmly at him, looking into the house. More than a snobby house, it looked like a big family home, warm and inviting, and Strike walked to the front door almost absentmindedly. 

“Hello!” Martha opened the door before they could reach it, beaming, and hugged Strike. “I missed you!”

“Martha! Long time no see! How’re the grandchildren?” he asked as they pulled apart.

“Oh, growing too fast I’m afraid,” she smiled warmly at him, patting his cheeks motherly. “You’ve grown thinner, I’m going to have to make you a big steak!” Strike’s stomach grumbled and they laughed.

“You just ate one!” Robin laughed.

“It wasn’t Martha’s!” replied Strike.

The house was warm and cosy and homey, while wild and simple at once, far from the ostentation of the previous home. Robin and Martha showed him the house. The ground floor had a large kitchen that led into the dining side of the sitting-cum-dining room and then there was an entry hall, a swimming pool and a small gym installed inside the garage. There was also a laundry room that wasn’t very big, and a toilet. The floor above had all the bedrooms and a small office-cum-library already full of boxes of books, and the walls were full of glass, which Strike knew Robin loved.

“And this is your bedroom,” Robin opened the room in front of her own, the five doors and the stairs encountering in a small corridor, and Strike followed her inside. The room was pretty big, the windows led to the back garden, there was a big bed, a desk with an armchair, a big bookcase, and a large closet with some shelves, even a TV on the wall over a fireplace at the feet of the bed.

“Woah,” Strike’s eyebrows raised in surprise. “This is really nice for sure.”

“You like it?” Robin smiled. “I chose the furniture myself.” Strike beamed at her.

“Well you know me so well,” Strike opened the bathroom. There was already a small rug by the bathtub-shower, and toilet paper. “All excellent, well, thank you very much.” He got out of the bathroom and looked sympathetically at Robin. “I should go pick up my things and put my flat out for rent.”

“Good,” Robin smiled.

 


	11. Friendship marriage

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things heat up in this friendship

The new move meant that Strike was in first line to see Robin’s crestfallen state. Two weeks after moving in, he was just in the sitting room playing videogames on the TV. Martha had just left and Strike had accompanied her to the door, since Robin was taking a nap, reportedly feeling a little under the weather, no more details given. Martha had checked on her and had assured Strike all was good, and Strike wasn’t keen on stepping in women’s territory for no reason, he kept reminding himself he was just a friend and a bodyguard. But when dinner time came and Robin wasn’t coming downstairs, he decided it was time to take action.

He walked upstairs slowly, silently, until he got to the closed door of Robin’s door, where he knocked a couple times.

“Robin, it’s Cormoran. I’m just coming to check on you, all right?” he announced before opening the door and peeking inside the darkness. “Robin? It’s Cormoran, are you awake?” he repeated.

“Yes...” a murmur came from under the duvet. Strike turned the bedside lamp on and walked around the bed looking for Robin’s face, which ended up being in the opposite side, hidden under the covers almost completely.

“Hi you, are you still feeling sick?” he heard a hum in return and he sat on the verge of the bed, pressing his palm against Robin’s forehead softly. That got her to half-open her eyes. “I don’t feel a fever. Are you in any pain? I can call Nick, he’s a doctor, remember?”

“I’m not,” Robin sighed. “I’m just tired, Cormoran. I don’t sleep well; I have no energy to get up.” She half-slurred. Strike nodded in understanding.

“Okay, move aside,” he said removing his shoes. “Gimme some space.”

“What?”

“I said move” he insisted, climbing on the bed. Robin scowled and grunted, but moved aside, and Strike lied over the covers next to her, moving to turn the lamp off again. “Get comfy.”

“...Right.” Robin rolled to lie on her side, too tired to argue him, and faced the wall. Strike did the same and put a hand on her hip. “What are you doing, Cormoran?”

“I’m being a friend. Don’t worry, I’m not going to get under the covers.” Robin frowned a little but then relaxed contently emitting a long sigh of relaxation as Strike rubbed her back slowly, pressing his strong fingers on the tightened muscles of her back until she was moaning in delight, which made him gulp and squeeze his legs together. “I know what it is like staying in bed for weeks. I won’t judge you.” He whispered.

“I don’t want to be here anymore...” Robin murmured rolling over and putting a hand softly over his own, that had fallen on her belly as she rolled over. Strike kissed her shoulder softly.

“Netflix and chill?”

“Mmm... I want to go dance. In pyjamas.” She said smiling.

“I assume you mean dance to good music, not that shit on the radio right?” he asked with a smirk. She giggled and nodded. “Then I think I can help.”

Ten minutes later, Strike had his favourite playlist blasting in the sitting room with songs from the 80’s and 90’s mostly but some from the last millennium, and he was filling a large cup of whiskey to Robin.

“Okay, don’t stop until it’s empty,” Strike said giving Robin the glass. And crashing it softly with his own. She grimaced.

“But this is whiskey!”

“Precisely,” Strike smiled. They were both in their comfiest pyjamas. “Ready?” Robin smiled challenging and nodded. “Go!” both started drinking at once, some of the whiskey dripping from their mouths, looking at what the other was doing and challenging the other to keep going, until the glass was empty. Robin grimaced looking at her empty glass.

“God! That burnt!”

“But the heart burns a little less, doesn’t it?” Strike raised his eyebrows knowingly.

“Touché,” Robin nodded, already feeling a little tipsy. “More!” They downed two more glasses and then Strike switched to good liquor. It was then that Dover’s ‘Let me out’ stated blasting. “Oh my God I love this song!”

“Told you I only have good music!” Strike raised the volume and they danced, Robin going wild and drunk.

“The phone is ringing, the clock keeps ticking just let me ooout!!!” Robin sang-shouted. Strike felt a little tipsy and was sure she was now truly drunk, and he spun her around, dancing together. And she was smiling and Strike couldn’t stop looking at her.

“I’m going to make dinner!” he shouted over the music, deciding it was time they ate something, and sliding to the kitchen. When he came back with the dinner ready on a tray, Robin was dancing on a hypnotising way, swinging around on her own with her hands over her head and her eyes closed, her hips swaying and a bottle of alcohol in her hand. He put the tray on the coffee table by the sofa and gently took the bottle out of her hand. She opened her eyes and looked at him intensely, and then she was swaying to him, looking at him intently with dilated pupils and biting her lip sensually. She put her arms around his neck, swaying her hips up and down, pressing her chest against her, and Strike felt himself harden. Robin felt it too, because she smiled. “Robin... I don’t think this is a good idea. You’re very drunk. You don’t really want this old fart.” He smiled warmly at her and she scowled.

“Don’t tell me what I want!” she then bit his earlobe slightly, making him moan, and she laughed. “I feel how much you want me, Corm...”

“Okay, let’s go eat all right?” She snorted a laugh as he managed to help her onto the sofa, and she had another swing of the bottle of expensive Ron he had put on the floor while he nailed her food with a fork and offered it to her, directly to her mouth. She was sure to eat it while fixing her eyes on him and licking his lips sexually making a moan sound. Strike would laugh, if the situation was different. He couldn’t sleep with Robin, he was her closest friend, she couldn’t afford to lose that and mixing things always wound up badly for friendships. “God girl, here, grab some more...” he forced more food into her mouth and he took a mouthful of his plate himself.

“What if I want to be a bad girl?” Robin asked insinuating as she leaned towards him, her mouth close to kissing him. He almost chocked in his food and coughed.

“Come on Robin, this isn’t you...” suddenly Robin was taking her t-shirt off and staring at him naked from the waist up. He gulped, blushing. “Please put that back on...”

“No,” she answered simply, taking his hands and pressing them onto her breasts, forcing them open on them, making them squeeze her breasts and moaning. Strike could feel hard nipples under his palms. Robin smiled. “They’re real.”

“I-I see... now let’s go back to the zucchini...”

“I want to eat something else...” and suddenly her lips were on his. He tried to resist some more for a moment, but at one point her tongue teased his, her hand found his package, cold from the bottle against his warmth, and as he groaned, his brain stopped working. 

**. . .**

“Oh my God...” Strike heard the groan as he opened his eyes and rolled grunting, frowning as his face got squashed against a mane of hair. He opened the eyes and saw orange. “Cormoran fuck! What have we done?”

Strike opened his eyes and looked around, narrowing his eyes. Robin and himself were sitting on the floor of the sitting room, entangled in clothes and the sofa blanket and pillows, both pretty naked. Robin blushed hard, looking around with her hair all dishevelled and beautiful, trying to cover her breasts.

“I recall you jumping my bones, I told you it wasn’t a good idea. I told you.” He sighed, getting up. “I’m going to shower.” Robin’s eyes widened at the sight of his dick and she sighed, looking around at the mess.

Half an hour, both showered and dressed, Robin was still in shock, as Strike put a mug of tea in front of her and they sat around the kitchen island to drink their tea together. It was late morning already.

“How could we...?” Robin asked. Strike frowned. He was so used to sleeping around he wasn’t very shocked, even if it was with Robin.

“Well I’m telling you, I tried to stop you but you’re a lightweight and get drunk with nothing, and I can’t say no anymore when your hands are on my dick,” he chuckled smug. “I loved it, though. You’ve got quite the sex skills Robin...” he teased with a chuckle. Robin looked terrified and he got serious. “What?”

“I can’t have done that! We can’t have slept together!”

“Oh, we did...” Strike rose up his t-shirt and turned around, showing the scratch marks on his back that Robin had done. “They still burn... Honestly Robin, you’re thirty, what’s the big deal? Okay, we are friends but I’m sure we can go on like mature adults, right? This doesn’t have to mean anything. We like each other, we had one nigh of fun, if you want, that can’t be all this is. We’re friends who slept together, old story in the books. But if you can, we could be friends with benefits or... I don’t know. What do you want?” Robin opened and closed her mouth several times and said nothing. She still felt like something had split her apart down there.

“W...” She shrugged. “What do I want? I wish this hadn’t happened!”

“Robin,” Strike looked softly at her. “Please tell me this isn’t the first time you sleep with someone because I assumed...”

“No, I’ve only ever been with Matthew!” Strike’s eyes widened.

“Oh... I see... shit...” Robin nodded, standing up and walking around. “Okay, okay let’s not flip here okay?” he stood and took her hands. “Let’s start by something simpler. Robin I like you. I think you’re a wonderful person and friend, I have fun with you, and you’re absolutely gorgeous. Now, if you don’t feel the same way, it’s fine, what happened last night can stay there, we retake our friendship as if nothing happened, no pressure. Do you like me though? Because last night it looked like it...” Robin gulped and blushed hard, looking down shyly.

“I... kinda do... I mean, you’re attractive of course, I’m not blind, I just, you’re my bodyguard and my friend and we live together, and what if it all goes wrong? And my life is very complicated, what if the cameras catch us kissing or something? And...” Strike cut her rambling with a gentle kiss on her lips, so brief Robin barely realised it had happened, but she missed it as it ended.

“Relax,” Strike’s voice was so soft and warm Robin felt all her senses relax to it. “I’m not talking about marrying you or being your boyfriend. I’m just saying, you like me, I like you, and our personal situations may be a little complicated for serious things but perhaps there’s nothing wrong with having a carnal relationship? Purely for pleasure...” he shrugged, suggestive. Robin nodded slowly.

“Oh... well...”

“Didn’t you have fun?”

“I barely remember it but what I do remember...” she blushed hard and nodded, biting her lip all shy. Strike smiled.

“I had fun too. So what if we sleep together every now and then? Is not the end of the world. No one has to know, right? We’re here, and if anyone asks, we’re just friends and bodyguard and actress.”

“I guess but... what if we start sleeping together and that makes us feel stronger things for each other and then our friendship goes to hell?” Robin asked anxious. She didn’t want to lose him.

“The what ifs are what stop us from embarking into the best adventures,” replied Strike. Robin raised her eyebrows at him.

“Grandma Maggie?” Strike blushed.

“Indeed,” he murmured. Then, he moved and grabbed a pen and a big post it that were always around in the kitchen to write down messages for Martha and vice versa when they weren’t going to be home. “But if it worries you that much... we’ll make a contract.”

“A contract?”

“C. B. Strike and R. V. Ellacott promise...” Strike wrote as he voiced it out. “To put their friendship before sex, romance and business,” he looked at Robin inviting her to add. Robin picked up and nodded.

“To be loyal and respectful to each other.”

“To listen to each other,” Strike wrote everything down.

“To be honest and say how they feel even if they’re afraid of what the other may think, to avoid future issues,” said Robin. Strike looked up at her for a moment but then he nodded and wrote it down.

“To protect each other without intruding,” Strike wrote.

“To not make tantrums born in jealousy and mistrust, and not give the other reasons to do those things either.”

“To trust and be loyal to each other.”

“To care for each other.”

“To be communicative.”

“To protect each other’s privacy.”

“To care for the other even when we’re angry.”

“To not hurt the other on purpose.”

“To not hold eternal resentments.”

“To not keep track of the other’s mistakes so we can keep rubbing them in when we’re angry.”

“I ran out of space,” Strike said after squeezing that last thing down. “Should I grab more paper?”

“No,” Robin smiled tenderly. “That should be enough. Thanks for doing this, Corm...”

“It does make me feel calmer,” Strike smiled a little, signing the paper. “Now you’re signature here...” Robin chuckled doing so. “Woah, look at this. We should frame it.” Robin laughed.

“Did we just get married?” Robin realised suddenly.

“Friendship marriage,” Strike laughed. They smiled at each other, and kissed.

 


	12. 20th Anniversary

The next few days were full of an excitement and thrill normal life had never given Strike, sneaking kisses behind closed doors, sneaking into each other’s rooms at night, pretending to be just bodyguard and boss in front of the cameras and just friends when they went out with other friends. But undeniably, Robin was growing closer to Strike’s friends and family, and when Robin’s family or friends came down from Masham, Strike grew closer to them too. It seemed as if they were a couple, but not really.

In the privacy of his mind, Strike admitted to feel intense desire towards Robin. Physically, she was gorgeous and caused electricity when she touched him, and personality wise, she made him laugh the hardest, understood him, and proposed interesting literary discussions. She became a drug to him, and he could hardly stand not being in her company. He thought Robin didn’t feel very different either; the way she looked at him, the way she, just like him, searched for his touch absentmindedly at times, the way she blushed when she caught him looking at her, how her skin filled with Goosebumps when he touched it. However, they didn’t make a habit of sharing the bed for entire nights, not wanting for anyone in the service to find them together.

That led for Strike to wake up alone in the morning of Wednesday, June 15 th . The twentieth anniversary of his father’s murder. It was curious how the heart knew of anniversaries, as if it could detect there had been twenty years without the man, and Strike automatically felt an extra weight in his chest that left him prostrated in bed, looking at the ceiling. The house was in silence and after a few minutes, he rolled and grabbed his phone, searching between his pictures until he found it, the last picture they had gotten of Everett, that he had sent them weeks before he died. In the picture, he stood in his uniform, smiling warmly, with his short wavy dark hair neatly brushed, his sparkling blue eyes staring at the camera, just like Lucy’s. His face was large like hers, and his eyebrows hairy like Strike’s. He had a moustache and goatee shaven like a Musketeer, and he was fit and broad. Strike had the vague memory of him carrying each child on one shoulder like a sack of potatoes and lifting them towards the sun.

The knock on the door got him out of his trance, and Robin’s head peeked in the darkness as Strike had put the mobile back on the night stand. She didn’t know that day was  _that_ day.

“Morning,” she whispered. “You awake?”

“Yeah,” Strike rubbed his eyes in the darkness. Robin was already rushing under the covers and snuggling against him, humming contently as his body heat surrounded her. He smiled kissing the top of her head, that was against his chest. Sometimes she was like Waverly had been at times, sneaking inside his bed in the mornings. “Slept good?”

“Better when you’re around,” she recognised blushing, realising that was too romantic. She was so content though, snuck under the warm covers, with her cheek against his chest and his arms around her. It smelled of Benson & Hedges, shaving cream and _man_. “Why didn’t you come down for breakfast?”

“I missed breakfast?” Strike was surprised. He never missed breakfast. “Damn, must have slept in. Did you bring me some breakfast?” he asked in a naughty voice. Robin had a bit of a giggle cupping his face and kissing him tenderly.

“Luckily for you Martha just left to do grocery shopping,” Robin whispered between kisses. Strike moaned against her lips, already cupping her breasts.

“Sit on my face?” he asked between kisses. He felt her smile and remove her pyjama shorts before moving to straddle his face. He chuckled at the sight, rubbing in her delicate parts with her fingers and placing kisses there. “All dripping for me already, babe?”

“All for you,” she groaned feeling herself blush at the dirty talk, or what was dirty talk for her innocence, and lower herself with a groan as his tongue pocked her entrance.

**. . .**

The pair snuggled on the sofa after their morning rendezvous, Strike feeling like he hadn’t really rested all night and already snoring away while Robin sat with her feet on a cushion on the coffee table and Strike’s head on her lap, stroking his hair gently as she binge-watched the BBC. She found it weird that Strike had such little energy in the day, but imagined maybe he was just worn out after spending the day before accompanying her to do some shopping. Robin was tired herself, her rest still interrupted by frequent nightmares.

As she relaxed with her fingers sunk in Strike’s tiny thick and soft curls, Robin saw Strike’s phone buzzing on the coffee table next to her feet, and she leaned to grab it and see if she needed to wake Strike up for it. It was a call and the name on screen read ‘Mummy’. Robin smiled touched by the fact that Strike still called her mother, mummy, and palmed his cheek softly to wake him up.

“Cormoran, sweetheart, your mother’s calling you,” she repeated a few times, until he rose from his slumber and leaned into the phone Robin pressed against his ear, still sleepy.

“Hi mummy, how are you?” he asked sleepily. Robin muffled a laugh, stroking his other cheek with her free hand. “That’s good. Oh, just taking a nap... yeah...” Strike cleared his voice and rubbed his eyes absentmindedly. “I’ve been rather busy mum, I’m sorry. I’ll visit soon, I promise... yeah, it’s been so long, can’t wait to see the sea again. Ah, bloody London, you know how it is, closest thing is The Serpentine uh?” Strike snorted a laugh. “All right. Love you too, see you soon.” He hung up and sighed looking at Robin. “Mother.” Robin smiled.

“Chastising you for not visiting her more often?” Robin raised her eyebrows amused.

“Not my fault she lives all the way down in St. Mawes,” he put his phone back on the coffee table unceremoniously. “Anyway, I should visit soon. She’s getting old and lonely, and my sister visits her pretty often so I always look bad.” Robin smiled.

“Sure, take all the time you want and go see her.”

“I was wondering...” Strike looked nervous. “Would you come with me? I duh... I don’t feel right leaving you alone here with all that’s happened. I’m your bodyguard after all and Matthew might be in prison but you’re still an actress, the danger never dies right?” Robin looked sweetly at him, touched.

“You want me to meet your family? Isn’t it too formal...?” she asked to be sure he understood where he was getting into. He flustered and stood up, stretching his limbs with a groan.

“Meeting my family is just part of the consequences of coming, and my main interest is to keep you safe,” said Strike. “Besides... yes, if you were just my boss, I would cancel everything and just stay here, if you were just my lover, I wouldn’t dream of bringing you even to Lucy’s doorstep, but you’re one of my best friends and we agreed that goes before it all right? And a best friend, of course I would invite them to the beach, not to mention June is the festivals month! Think about it, a few days of relaxation far from the cameras and the fans...” he raised his eyebrows suggestively at her.

“You ain’t need to convince me,” Robin snorted a laugh. “I’d love to go. Let’s pack our things and leave, actually.”

“Already?” Strike looked questioningly at her.

“Of course! The longer we delay it, the more things I’ll miss!”

Strike could only smile as Robin excitedly ran upstairs asking if she should bring all short sleeves and flip-flops.

**. . .**

Strike’s brand new BMW full of suitcases and bags, with vague discussions about whether to stay two weeks or a month (offer proposed by Robin), he started driving them away from London, Robin’s playlist beating low as she phoned people to let them know they wouldn’t be home, cancel events or move other events. The weight in Strike’s chest lessened as he saw Robin leaning back in her seat, with her sunglasses on, singing along her playlist, smiling and the sun making her hair shine.

“All right, rooms booked!” said Strike as they stopped for lunch after two hours on the road. He was sitting on his chair, looking at his phone, with his empty plate in front. Robin, across from him, frowned.

“Aren’t we staying with your family?”

“Well, Lucy’s clan is there and the kids are sleeping in my room so it’ll be too crowded. I told my mother is okay, besides,” Strike looked seductively at Robin. “That way we can get into extracurricular activities without anyone knowing. I booked a room with two double beds.” Robin laughed at his face.

“Keep teasing and we won’t make it to St. Mawes today,” she looked at him fondly. “I miss your lips...” Strike pursed his lips doing like a fish and Robin giggled. It was music for Strike’s ears.

“So where are we staying then?”

“The Rising Sun. Four stars, you’re paying.” Robin chuckled.

There was only a second stop scheduled before reaching Masham, and they teased each other sexually all the way there. It started with Strike casually kissing Robin’s neck while she drove her turn, then she was putting her hand near his crotch, then he was sliding a lone finger inside her underwear, and then they were parking abruptly somewhere isolated and rushing to the backseat.

Eventually, they reached Exeter, and Strike took the wheel to drive them through the wonders of Cornwall. As they neared the coast and Robin had her eyes glued to the window, flipping at the view –the tall green plants filling the view, the sea in the far horizon- Strike felt he really needed to update her.

“Uh, Robs?”

“Yeah?”

“Uhm... you probably should know...” Strike kept his hands on the steering wheel and his eyes glued on the road. “Part of the reason my mother called today is because today’s my father’s twentieth death anniversary.”

“Oh...” Robin looked at him, speechless. Part of their unspoken arrangement included not talking much about sad things, just sexing days away so they didn’t have to think about them. But Robin felt that wasn’t right anymore. “That’s all right. Are you all right?” Strike smiled dryly looking at the road.

“I suppose I am, I’ve been worse. But I miss him,” he nodded for himself. “He was uh... he wasn’t home much, with his job. But when he was... he took us all travelling. We’d go to all of Cornwall’s festivals in one week, he’d teach us drive, make a garden... every time he was back you could tell because he was always up for something. We loved to do kayaking, for example. He always tried to recover the lost time. It’s ironic, one would think that seeing him leave so often, we’d be used to have him gone... but thing is...”

“You’re used to him always coming back, a thousand times, no matter what. Until he didn’t... it’d be hard to believe,” Robin murmured. Strike nodded, glad she understood so well. “It’s what makes it hard to believe your heroes die. You’re used to seeing them survive everything and when they don’t is like... can’t be real.”

“You seem to know it well.” Robin snorted a laugh and looked again into the window.

“I lost my aunt to cancer, five years ago,” said Robin.

“I’m sorry.” He said sincerely.

“It’s all right. She’s not the actual reason why I get things. I was twenty-six then, had age to process things, and a psychology degree... although it did become a study case of the things I had learned in Uni,” she commented casually. “I just... actually I just always thought of myself as someone invincible. I survived rape and attempted murder at twenty-years-old, I can survive everything, right? Except no. One day, I will die. I’m not invincible. Humanity is just utterly fragile... we can thank Matthew for the reminder. Life is an instant, Cormoran. That’s why we sleep together and get unconventionally dirty, no matter what others can think, even if I for example wouldn’t have embarked in this years ago. We’ve suffered too much to pass opportunities of pure fun just because of social standards.”

“Damn right,” he squeezed her thigh. “Besides what’s so wrong with us sleeping together, uh? That you’re my boss? That we’re friends? That I’m a fucked-up widow and you’re a fucked-up ex-wife? Well, then I say we should just fuck each other up... nicely...” he added with a giggle. Robin giggled and her cheek collided with his shoulder.

“You know what I like the most about you?” she commented, her left arm wrapped around his torso.

“What?”

“You don’t give a bugger. You do the hell you want and can break the face of anyone who doesn’t bugger off.” Strike snorted a laugh at her lovely Yorkshire accent. Robin smiled. “You’ve seen too much shit to feel guilty for doing the things you like.”

Strike gulped and kept driving in silence for a few minutes. Next he spoke, his voice was so low it was almost a whisper.

“I do feel guilty for that sometimes though,” he said. “When the things I like fuck the people I care about, up.”

“How would doing something you like bother people who you care about? Assuming they care about you too, wouldn’t they want for you to be happy?” Robin asked with a frown.

“I am a self-destructive person, Robin,” Strike confessed.

“Oh, come on, you don’t drink that much...” Robin smiled kissing his shoulder. “You just have low self-esteem, but you’re pretty fine.”

“No, I mean...” Strike sighed. “Sometimes I don’t wish to be alive. Sometimes death seems incredibly attractive. It’s been like that, for the past twenty years of my life. And when I can’t kill myself because I don’t want to give my suffering to my family and friends, I content with hurting myself as much as I can.” He felt Robin’s eyes staring at him, her arm rigid.

“Stop the car.” Strike did so immediately, at the side of the road.

 


	13. Nobody likes Charlotte

“Those scars in your arms...” Robin whispered. They were sitting in the car, staring into the horizon in front of them. “They aren’t from an angry cat Waverly used to have, right?”

“I never had a cat. Waverly was allergic,” answered Strike.

“And you have such a high resistance to alcohol... because you’re alcoholic.”

“Well,” Strike snorted a laugh. “We have high resistance to alcohol in the family, I wouldn’t call myself an alcoholic... I just started drinking at thirteen so...” Robin nodded silently.

“You stood in front of Matthew while he pointed at you with a shotgun without fear because you didn’t care if you died.”

“I only cared if my death made you die too, but if you hadn’t been there...”

“In the car,” Robin looked at him, pieces suddenly fitting together in her mind. “I came back when you didn’t swim out. I thought you were stuck on the window, but you aren’t so big. I thought perhaps your hip hurt so much, but adrenaline would’ve stopped it from hurting, you swam just fine afterwards. You stopped trying to get out. On purpose. Just like you could’ve gotten out and pull from me if I couldn’t, and instead you choose to stay behind and push me out.” Strike looked attentively at her and slowly, nodded.

“I felt exhausted, all of the sudden. I couldn’t breathe. All I remember is thinking, what’s the point? And then I felt you pulling from my shirt... and for one moment, I wished it was Waverly.” He confessed. He felt nervousness creeping inside of his chest and took a deep breath.

“So when you get upset saying I take too many meds... when you said you couldn’t be given meds in the hospital... those things... are they.... related to...?” Strike sighed deeply.

“When my father died, my sister and I were prescribed Prozac, it’s an antidepressant. It was for prevention. It made me feel so relaxed and so well, I started taking more than I should’ve. My mum noticed and withdrew it from both of us, and my sister was fine but then withdrawal symptoms started in me and I couldn’t cope with it, so I asked a friend if he could give me something to keep me calm. I was irritable, anxious, angry, depressed... I wanted to chill. I started with benzodiazepines, but eventually, I moved on into bigger things and heroine became my go-to. It wasn’t about wanting to die then, it was about wanting to chill and be happy. And then I was a fourteen-year-old addict in London, meeting the worst parts of the city, truanting and drinking heavily and risking my life stupidly. Eventually, Uncle Ted caught me as we spent the Christmas holidays in St. Mawes, got me to my mother’s house pulling from my ear, I was so high and drunk that’s all I remember. Next I remember, I was in a rehab centre for nine months. My mum told everyone that I was very sick with something they couldn’t quite diagnose yet and they sent me everything so I could study from the rehab centre and do my exams with the supervision of the headmaster, who would come to visit me.”

“Nine months?” Robin’s eyes widened. Strike nodded forcing a small smile.

“Mum was really tough on me. She was afraid otherwise I’d never get better. Took three months since I first went in to start visiting me. They were the loneliest, worst months of my life, and I self-harmed, I tried to commit suicide, but... it was what I needed. During the summer, my whole family went on holiday to France and I stayed in the rehab centre as a lesson that if I wanted my family back, my friends, the joys of kayaking and holidaying, then I’d need to behave and get better, and my mum promised me that if I did so, I could come home and we’d do anything I wanted for Christmas. So I came back in September, went back to school, and on my birthday we came to St. Mawes for the weekend, did kayaking all weekend, and then for Christmas, I wanted to see the Northern Lights so we went to Iceland for it,” Strike commented leaning back in his chair and closing his eyes at the memories. “I wasn’t an addict no more. I wouldn’t even drink anything but water. Not even juice or coca-cola.”

“Woah,” Robin blinked several times, shocked. She leaned her head against the window. “So never again?”

“Well,” Strike shrugged. “I met Nina then, my first girlfriend, kept my feet on the ground. We only lasted another nine months, but was fun. Then a couple years later, Tracey. I was still clean. Then Charlotte in University, and I was still clean. Not even coffee went into my system. Mum was super proud. Then, of course... Waverly came into the picture, and I was all anxious at first, but stayed clean, all good.”

“But you drink now...”

“Because they died,” Strike blurted out, playing with the zipper of his jacket, shy. “Everyone was so afraid with that I’d go back to my old habits, even so many years later. And I wanted so badly to prove them wrong, but I uh... started just with one beer, I thought it’s just one beer, that’s nothing. But damn, it tasted so good and it had been so long, so another beer. And this was just when I saw Charlotte cheating, I didn’t even know she was dead yet. And when I learnt what had happened... I was out getting heroine faster than you run out of a room if you spot a spider. There are months I barely remember.”

“Shit...” Robin looked sadly at him. “But you don’t do heroine anymore, right?”

“Today would’ve been three years clean of anything but alcohol, if I hadn’t relapsed. Well, I was doing a lot of shit so when my father’s anniversary came up that year I thought... you know what? I’m going to just stick with alcohol, quit things slowly, maybe it’ll be easier. I wanted to do it for him and Waves... she used to say I was the only one of all her friends’ parents who didn’t drink beer, she said she liked it because I was always playing with her instead. She was too innocent to understand how much it meant to me that she’d notice those things... even if she was so innocent to think alcohol had anything to do with how much I played with her,” Strike smiled bittersweet at the memory, staring at his knees. Robin smiled small, feeling a lump in her throat at the thought of the little girl squashed by a truck.

“When did you relapse?” Robin asked, unsure if she really wanted to know.

“On their death anniversary in March. During the time you and I weren’t in touch anymore, after the car thing,” explained Strike. “I was high and drunk most of the time until I disgusted myself and decided I’d had enough. So... I’ve been clean for three months tomorrow.” Robin frowned.

“You got clean the same day Matthew tried to kill me?” he nodded and she snorted a laugh. “Well I’m glad we’ll have something great to think about when the anniversary comes then.” Strike chuckled, looking at her.

“I’m applying the things I learnt in rehab to help myself now and I drink less too, by the way. And these holidays less will probably mean close to nothing, because my family gives me worried eyes every time they see me with a bottle of Doom Bar.”

“So I am the welcomed distraction so they don’t stare at you,” Robin commented with amusement. Strike looked at her.

“Well obviously,” he said, jokingly, making her giggle. She moved to sit on his lap, squeezing herself with her ass against the steering wheel and her knees on the seat at the sides of Strike. “I don’t think this is a good idea girl...”

“Naughty, I wasn’t thinking of that,” Robin rolled eyes with a small smile cupping his face with her hands. “Promise me you’ll keep trying to get better.” She said all serious, sinking her eyes in his.

“’Course,” Strike found her behaviour strange. “You know I’m doing that even without promising anyone.”

“I know but, just so you get firmer with it ‘cause...” Robin shrugged, blushing. “I think I’m falling in love with you,” Strike’s heart skipped a beat. “I think you could’ve led to me being unfaithful to Matthew, because you were always... special. And I don’t want to fall in love with you and then see you die because you’re reckless.” Strike’s arms moved to hug her close around her hips and she pressed her forehead against his.

“Then you need to promise me you’ll let me help you when you’re struggling instead of shrugging it off, because I think I’m falling in love with you too and I’m not going to invest in someone who’s too proud to ask for help,” he rose his eyebrows suggestively. Robin smiled and nodded.

“Deal...”

“Then shut up and kiss me.”

Robin crossed the small distance between them and her lips pressed against his softly at first, and then with abandon, her hand burying in his hair and her mouth releasing a moan into his own. They’d arrive to St. Mawes even later.

They stopped at their hotel to leave their things first, and a quick phone-call with his sister was enough to let Strike know they were having dinner at Uncle Ted’s cruiser boat, so Strike took Robin down the coast to the pier. As they walked, Robin looked around with amazement at the sea, smelling it in her guts, the lights in the darkness at the horizon, where Falmouth was, looking at the pretty white houses and listening fascinated to their locals and their accent, so faint in Strike. As they passed ‘St. Mawes’ Sailing Club’ and turned to the right into the pier, Strike looked nervously at Robin.

“How do you want me to introduce you?” he asked.

“Uh... Robin?” Robin thought it was strange to ask. “Your sister already knows me anyway.”

“What if I introduced you as my girlfriend?” Strike asked looking into the dark sky. Robin beamed.

“That’d be great,” they smiled at each other, and resisted the urge to kiss by squeezing intertwined hands. “Woah, that’s your uncle’s boat?” she pointed at a huge cruiser yacht, whose lights shun in the darkness of the night. Strike nodded.

“My mum, my cousins, my sister and I bought it to him and Aunt Joan for their thirty-five wedding anniversary. It cost a couple kidneys but they’re the envy of the whole town.”

“Needless to say!” Robin whistled looking at the ship. “Impressive.”

The cruiser was two storeys tall and laughter could be heard from it from the pier. Strike helped Robin into the cruiser and, taking her hand, helped her up into a thin, small staircase, until they reached a big oval terrace. The front had glass windows and was where the controls were, and the rest of it lacked windows, being open and letting the air come in, with a light ceiling on top.

“¡CORMORAN!” a bunch of voices rose at once, and soon, Robin and Strike saw themselves engulfed in family affection.

There was Leda Strike, sixty-five, still tall for her age, with a heart-shaped face, marmoset dark green eyes, hair long and up in a bum, white and dark, her smile kind and warm and her voice sweet; Ted and Joan Marlow, in their late sixties, with a few extra pounds, rosy cheeks, Ted an older version of Strike, with glasses, both with hair white, Joan’s short and her eyes soft brown; Lucy, Greg and their three boys; Cousin Maggie, in her mid-thirties, with her husband Kyle, both brunette, like their daughters Sandy, who was seven-years-old, and Ashlyn, who was five; Cousin Molly, Robin’s age, very physically alike her sister Maggie; and then Nick, Ilsa, Mackenzie; and Ilsa’s native parents, Graham and Perenelle ‘Nelly’ Bertham, owners of ‘St. Mawes’ most famous pub’ Graham thin, blonde, with glasses like his daughter and Ted’s best friend from school, and Nelly brunette, Leda’s best friend from school.

So many people Robin wondered how they all fit in the boat without it sinking. The table was full of food and Ted brought some folding chairs with ease, fitting everyone in at the chant of ‘There’s enough for everyone!’ and then introductions were made, looks of surprise at the mention of Robin being ‘the girlfriend’ were ignored, and questions about each other’s whereabouts were asked. Basically, everyone had come down for the June festivals and activities of Cornwall.

“Let this be the last time I find out you had a car accident from the gossip magazines, all right?” Leda chastised her son affectionately putting an arm around him.

“The gossip magazines?” Robin looked surprised. “Really?”

“I’m sure it was because of you, but if they can be my eyes and ears in London I’m happy,” Leda smiled at Robin.

“It wasn’t a car accident thought...” Strike corrected.

“Well your sister already updated me so I know, but it should’ve been you...”

“I was busy babysitting Robin, mum...”

“Hey!” Robin slapped him playfully and they laughed. “That’s what you say your job is?” she asked amused.

“It varies between that and Lord Protector,” Strike joked peeling a sardine. They laughed and Robin snorted a laugh, shaking her head.

“You’re lucky I like you.”

“I’m lucky you let me use your warm swimming pool,” Strike chuckled, kissing her cheek. She blushed.

“So Robin, you’re an actress, right?” asked Maggie. “You’re the girl from the drug addict TV show on the BBC?”

“Exactly right,” Robin smiled.

“I always thought you’d be a diva because of that show, but now you don’t seem like a diva at all. Not like Charlotte, no offense dear.” She added looking sympathetically at Cormoran.

“Non-taken, Charlotte was a snob and a diva, that’s why I don’t particularly like them anymore,” Strike busied himself eating fish like a cat and moaning in delight in ways that sometimes made Robin rise eyebrows at him. She had only heard him make certain sounds in the bedroom.

“Oh that’s right, you’re the girl whose husband...” Ilsa’s mother, Nelly, shut her own mouth on time. “I mean...” she blushed. “It was on the news.”

“It’s all right,” Robin chuckled. “It’s been a while now, I’m a bit more over it now.”

“He’ll spend the rest of his miserable life between bars.” Ilsa told her mother, who held baby Mackenzie in her arms.

“Thankfully my knight of shining armour was around to save the day,” Robin looked fondly at Strike, kissing his shoulder.

“Wah you talkin’ ‘bout?” he asked with the mouth full, and then gulped. “You had it all handled out already with the tortoise manoeuvre. I just knelt and punched him in the groin, what a big, heroic act.” He joked with a chuckle. Robin rolled eyes and smirked. She was fond of treating the topic with dark humour.

“You’re making a mess and staining your shirt sweetie,” Robin took a napkin and nonchalantly cleaned a piece of fish off Strike’s shirt. He smiled at her fondly, his mouth already full of more fish.

“Ugh, so in love...” Molly murmured with a chuckle, happy for them.

“What happened with your girlfriend, Molly?” Strike asked her. “I liked her, don’t tell me you ruined it.”

“Why do you assume _I_ would be to blame?” Molly pretended to be indignant. “Nothing happened, she’s just had to fly to her hometown in Swansea for business. She’ll be back in time for partying some with us. How long are you staying?”

“We haven’t discussed it much but Robin intends to keep me here a month, and as long as there’s food I will not refuse,” said Strike.

“Let’s just pray my agent doesn’t call me screaming bloody murder in the morning for leaving so fast,” Robin chuckled. “I just told Cormoran to get his things ready and we’d come, because I know if I ask my manager what’s left for me to do she’ll start piling up an enormous list, it’s easier to tell her hey, cancel everything ‘cause I’m gone. There’s nothing that important anyway.”

“And you deserve a holiday,” Strike filled her a glass of wine.

“I must say, darling,” Leda looked sympathetically at Robin. “I’m glad my son’s finally dating again and is someone who seems nice like you. We weren’t very fond of Charlotte, poor thing, but she was a good mother at least.”

“Mum...” Strike gave his mother stern eyes. “You know I’m not fond of bullshit talking about who to this day is still my late wife and your only granddaughter’s mother.”

“I didn’t say any bullshit darling,” Leda frowned. “I’m just saying Robin seems great and you chose nicely.”

“Thank you Mrs Strike,” Robin smiled at Leda. “I was very excited to come and meet Cormoran’s whole family, to be honest. They say a man half himself half a product of his family, right?”

“This one for sure turned out okay,” Leda looked proudly at her firstborn. “But please, just call me Leda.”

Dinner went on and soon they were engaged in laughter and fun until first the parents started leaving, and then Strike and Robin, exhausted from the trip, walked back to the hotel, Strike’s jacket wrapped around Robin. Strike flopped in bed as soon as he was in pyjamas and Robin imitated him, snuggling underneath the covers with him and pressing into his chest as he slept on his side.

“Had fun?” Strike asked throwing an arm around her and pressing his face against the top of her head.

“Much,” Robin’s muffled voice came. “Why are there two beds?”

“For the suitcases,” Strike joked. “Nah, had to pretend we don’t sleep together in case the press sniffles around...”

“Smart...” Robin moved to kiss him. “Good night, handsome.”

“Good night, birdie.”

 


	14. Human towel

Towards the sun rise, Robin’s nightmares awoke Strike, as she was kicking around and groaning, murmuring unintelligible things, scowling and tossing. He lied awake on his side as she stretched and tossed facing the ceiling, and he kept a hand on her belly drawing circles with one thumb. Nightmares were, after all, the first step of trauma management, and at least this time she wasn’t shouting. Robin’s eyes then opened after about half an hour of struggle, and looked at him, disoriented and restless.

“Hi...” he cupped her face gently and pressed their lips together. “Bad night?”

“Sucks...” Robin snuggled against him and sighed.

“Sh...” Strike caressed her bright hair and hugged her tight. “You’re safe here.”

“We could go to the beach?” Robin asked looking up.

“Right, but only after I’ve covered your northern body in protective cream.”

“Y’know, if I wasn’t so tired, I’d be very naughty about that.”

Strike laughed, and headed out of bed to call breakfast via room service and fetch the sun-cream. And an hour later, they were walking into the beach, holding big towels and covered in sun-cream from head to toe, Strike carrying a portable mini-fridge with ice and drinks. The beach soon proved not to be like the Spanish beaches Robin had visited.

“What the...? There’s barely sand, is full of pebbles!” Robin pouted. Strike laughed.

“Oh, but there’s sand, here, this side...” they moved to a more sandy area. “Better?”

“Meh,” Robin shrugged. “Is the water as good as it looks?”

“Sure, let’s go!”

“But what about our things? Someone has to stay behind and look after them right?”

“Babe, this is St. Mawes, not London. No one’s going to steal a towel,” Strike chuckled at her, finding her just adorable. Robin blushed.

“You called me babe,” Robin murmured. Strike raised his eyebrows nervously and she smiled. “I like it.”

They swam in the cold waters, splashing each other and enjoying the ocean for a long while and then, tired, the pair returned to their towels, Robin covering herself with her own while Strike stretched lying on his own, sunglasses on and a bottle of Doom Bar at hand, sighing in contentment.

“Fuck...” Robin frowned.

“What?”

“I need another towel to lie on...” Robin pouted again. Strike snorted a laugh.

“Can’t you use the same one?”

“But I’m cold!”

“There’s sun...”

“Not enough...”

“You’re from Yorkshire! You stand cold better than anyone...” Robin made a complain sound. Strike smiled looking adoringly at her. “Come, lie on me.”

“Really?” Robin looked excited. Strike laughed and palmed his chest.

“Come here beauty!” Robin snuggled on him, humming content, nuzzling into his neck and putting a leg between his own, a hand playing with his chest mane. He wrapped his arms around her and kissed her forehead. “You’re adorable and perfect.” He said fondly. Robin smiled and kissed his cheek.

“You’re salty.” Strike laughed and Robin chuckled, feeling his body shaking of laughter below her, like an earthquake under her body. “I like Cornish Corm.” She closed her eyes and Strike grinned, squeezing her tight.

“I like that you like me,” he murmured, grabbing his beer again and taking a sip from the straw. “Ah, this is the life...”

A while later, Strike was almost asleep, his beer finished, and his eyes closed, relaxed with Robin on top of him. It was in this state that he got the most thoughtful and started thinking about his feelings for Robin, how was it possible that he held her so dearly and felt so deeply for her, how she was his favourite person, the one who made him feel the most understood, like he was already perfect the way he was, like his madness made sense and like he could laugh and be happy again. He didn’t want to think of the cliché of being saved, but in some way, she had saved him. They had saved each other. And yet he thought of Charlotte and although it did no longer bring pain into his heart, he still felt so much for her, she was still his great love, his everything... and he wondered... were his feelings for Robin less real then?

“Babe,” he murmured, not wanting to wake her up if she had fallen asleep.

“Mmm?” Robin asked, rocked by the vibration of his body when he spoke.

“Do you think it’s possible to feel for two people very intensely and in a very similar way at the same time?”

“’Course,” Robin answered, matter-of-factly. “If your heart is big enough, there’s space for everyone, Cormey.”

“So you think that perhaps, one day, you’ll love me the way you loved Matthew?” he asked looking down at her. She looked up at him, surprised with the question, and rolled so she could put both hands on his sternum and her chin supported on them, Strike’s hands on his hips.

“No,” she said. “I think each love is unique. I think you can never feel exactly the same way for two people... is not a matter of worse and better, more and less... it’s just different. You make me feel in a way I’ve never felt before so, even if one day I was as in love with you as I was with Matthew... it would still be in a different way. It’s like if you have triplets and you love all three the same, because there isn’t favouritism, but at the same time, each makes you feel something different. Or like music, when you’re so in love with several songs at once and you can’t choose a favourite but you need them all, just as much, because each is different and gives you something different.”

“You’re one of my favourite songs then, babe,” Strike confessed, moving to peck her lips and smile at her. “I could listen to you for hours.” Robin chuckled.

“That’s how I feel about you, too,” she said cheerfully, kissing him again. “Besides... I think once one becomes special for someone, they’ll always be special.”

Strike propelled himself up to kiss her intensely and they rolled on the sand, Strike on top, giggling as they kissed more passionately.

**. . .**

“What’s that?” asked Robin, her freckled arm directed towards a marquee some people were putting on a field that was by the small cliff near St. Mawes’ Castle. The pair had just been walking away from the town eating ice-cream and holding hands when Robin had noticed the workers at the side of the thin road, in front of a fenced field of, Robin had thought, sheep. The workers were putting up the marquee, long and thick, and also seemed to be putting up little colourful lights hanging from posts, like a fair.

“They’re preparing things for tonight, it’s the St. Mawes’ Annual Night Out’,” Strike explained. “It’s existed as long as I remember, people love it. Basically it’s a night to gather, party, drink and hold the annual karaoke night, which is an opportunity for locals to have drunk fun and mock each other.” He chuckled. “It’s actually quite fun”.

“Are we coming tonight?” Robin asked excitedly.

“That’s the plan,” Strike kissed the ice-cream off her lips and licked his own lips. “Yummy!” she giggled.

“So do you do karaoke?”

“Actually, I’m an old Champion,” said Strike proudly.

“No way!” Robin’s blue-gray eyes sparkled with the sun, looking at him full of surprise and admiration.

“Yeah!” Strike laughed. “Uncle Ted has always been a great guitarist, and mum, a great pianist. Music just flows in the family. So Lucy and I learnt them both and we’ve won this thing a few times each. People usually cover songs, it’s not like, a typical karaoke of London, people come here and play instruments or sing with the small local band playing, so it’s like a concert, it’s what’s cool about it. At the end of the night we vote for our favourite and the winner has free drinks at Ilsa’s parents’ pub, ‘The Flying Broomsticks’, for a week.” Robin chuckled.

“Be ready then, because you’re about to lose your prize,” Robin teased. Strike made an expression of mock-indignation and she giggled.

“Really? Actress and singer?”

“I’ve got my talents,” Robin flipped her hair over her shoulder and laughed. “How many times can one sing?”

“As many as you want, it’s all for fun. There are some old favourites though, that usually get begged by the public to sing, or play an instrument, which is also allowed. I’m one of them, sorry for you.” Robin looked challenging at him.

“For now.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed this chapter and thanks for the comments and support!
> 
> If you like to, you can follow me in my tumblr https://thetrunkofthenighttraveler.tumblr.com/ where I basically post about Cormoran Strike and its actors, quotes, bits of Harry Potter and a tiny bit of Krashlyn (two USWNT players that are lesbian TOGETHER).
> 
> Hugs to you all!


	15. Those curls of yours

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anyone who gives me spoilers on Lethal White will receive a distance hug and special mentions. Love me some spoilers.

The night was young and St. Mawes’ Night Out was already full of people, as if the habitants of the small town had suddenly came out of their caves. Robin was impressed by how big the thing was, and how crowded, but luckily the grass esplanade was big enough for everyone. There was a bar with bartenders preparing drinks and giving food to everyone, children running around, police hanging around keeping this secure and stopping traffic in the area, and music already blasting on a small wooden stage, offered by the local musicians who volunteered. There were small round tables with chairs here and there, and picnic tables, colourful lights and portable bathroom cabinets, and everyone was in a good, happy vibe.

As Robin walked alongside the Marlow-Strike-Herbert-Bertham clan, she learned that the party was always held sometime in mid-June, without a fixed date, and that even the politicians came to fraternise with the people. The whole clan always tried to be there for the event, coming together. Robin couldn’t stop taking pictures, all excited, as they walked between the multitude to one of the large picnic tables where they all could fit. Soon, Robin had a pint at hand and was enjoying the music and the company, having fun eating her hamburger and stealing bits of Strike. She liked to keep in touch with her 176000 followers in the social networks, so she posted a picture of the musicians alongside the caption ‘Nothing like days off with good friends & good music by the ocean. So in <3 with this town!’.

Robin soon discovered some performers were known for their kind of performance. A comedian made things look like an old live performance of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, with rhythm songs everyone knew and the public shouting things back that Robin soon learned. Like every time the guy said ‘pint’ they had to yell ‘Go home Clint!’ for reasons unknown. But in their drunkenness, it was fun. There were interactive stories that one started making up and then pretended to forget how it continued and someone could raise his hand and be like ‘didn’t it continue like...?’ and some magic spectacles. Robin was taken as a volunteer for one, where the guy pretended to pull fifty pounds from her pocket, which even she was impressed for.

“And that’s my ex, Tracey,” Strike pointed out for Robin, at a sexy brunette walking onstage with a guitar. “I dated her when I was eighteen, we lasted three years, the longest after Charlotte. She’s from Falmouth but comes here often,” he explained, “we’re good friends. We’re always competing with each other at this thing.”

“She’s a musician?” asked Robin impressed.

“Her father’s got a guitar shop in Falmouth, she’s just in it for fun,” Strike shrugged. “She’s a dentist in Truro.”

“Oh... well, she looks like a good...” Robin, feeling a little jealous, shrugged. Strike snorted a laugh.

“Are you jealous?”

“Perhaps a little...” Robin blushed. “She’s just so... pretty.”

“Should _I_ be jealous?” Strike joked, kissing her without caring about their family watching. “Relax babe, you’re prettier, just a bit insecure at times.”

“And now for my last song, I’d like to have a little duet with my friend Cormoran if he’s around? Are you around Corm?!”

“Coming!” Strike chuckled at Robin and rushed to the stage. Robin smiled seeing how everyone cheered.

“Haven’t seen you in a while mate,” Tracey hugged Strike friendly.

“Felt it was time,” Strike murmured, but the micro was near enough to hear.

“So!” Tracey continued. There was silence as they listened. “A few years ago I found out about the band ‘Nickelback’, don’t know if you know it, this one didn’t,” she pointed playfully to Strike, “and... He’s got no idea what’s going on, this is a surprise.”

“I think I know,” Strike intervened.

“Oh d’you?” she looked playful at him.

“Yeah well, a few years ago, you sang me a song from this band because I was eating the floor, didn’t you? And you said one day you’ll gonna be better and then you’ll sing this one to me. And now you’re going to make me do it, aren’t you?” he chuckled.

“Well duet, because I love it. But only if you think it’s time.”

“Actually yes. Yes, damn it.”

“Yes!” There was cheering. “In that case ladies and gentlemen this is Nickleback’s ‘Lullaby’, in improvised acoustic version. For everyone who needs a light.” **[A/N:** _ **https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKEVTTpvWjo**_ **]** Tracey smiled sweetly and Robin joined the round of applause while Strike sat by the piano. Robin, who had never listened to Strike play an instrument but knew his voice was beautiful, sat straighter dying to hear. She saw Strike’s clan seemed quite confident and calm, which led Robin to supposing they knew it was going to be good.

Strike started playing the piano softly, all the lights off except for the ones onstage, and Tracey sat on a stool next to him, playing her guitar as a mere company.

“ _I know the feeling… Of finding yourself stuck out on the ledge. And there ain't no healing from cuttin' yourself with the jagged edge..._ ” Strike started singing. Robin’s eyes widened at the realisation of what this song was. Next part was sung with Tracey. “ _I'm tellin' you that it's never that bad, and take it from someone who's been where you’re at, you're laid out on the floor and you're not sure, you can take this anymore... So just give it one more try with a lullaby! And turn this up on the radio! If you can hear me now, I'm reachin' out to let you know that you're not alone_.” Tracey smiled sweetly at Strike and then stopped singing to leave him alone. “ _And you can't tell, I'm scared as hell, 'cause I can't get you on the telephone... So just close your eyes, well honey here comes a lullaby, your very own lullaby. Please let me take you out of the darkness and into the light, 'cause I have faith in you, that you're gonna make it through another night... Stop thinkin' about the easy way out, there's no need to go and blow the candle out, because you're not done, you're far too young. and the best is yet to come..._ ” Then Tracey and the volunteer guitarist and drummer joined in with their instruments and Tracey with her voice. “ _So just give it one more try, with a lullaby and turn this up on the radio. If you can hear me now, I'm reachin' out to let you know, that you're not alone_. _And you can't tell, I'm scared as hell 'cause I can't get you on the telephone. So just close your eyes, well honey here comes a lullaby... Your very own lullaby..._ ” Then Strike alone again, and Tracey’s guitar. _“Well everybody's hit the bottom, and everybody's been forgotten, well everybody's tired of being alone... Yeah everybody's been abandoned, and left a little empty handed... So if you're out there barely hangin', on..._ Everyone!” Tracey raised her hands up and she and the public accompanied clapping and singing alone in a lower voice, while the other musicians added their instruments. Strike smiled and Robin smiled back at him singing along. This was Strike finally moving on and encouraging others to know it gets better too. “ _Just give it one more try! With a lullaby! And turn this up on the radio! If you can hear me now, I'm reachin' out to let you know, that you're not alone_. _And you can't tell, I'm scared as hell, 'cause I can't get you on the telephone, so just close your eyes... Well honey here comes a lullaby, your very own lullaby... here comes a lullaby... Your very own lullaby.”_

While everyone applauded and cheered, Strike hugged Tracey and she got down the stage and Strike took the microphone.

“How are we doing, St. Mawes?!” there was excited yelling in return, and Robin joined in laughing. Nick, next to her, held Mackenzie, who sat on his lap impassive to the noise like a true St. Mawes and Londoner girl. “All right so, I’m usurping the stage now. Anyway, I missed the fun last year so you cope with me this one. Thing is, we know how songs are about stories and I know we all have plenty of stories, don’t we, Downey, drank all the wine already?” he looked into the public and laughs were heard. “So...” Strike chuckled, sitting by the piano. “I just want to torment you with a song of an artist that isn’t my style at all, but I found it by chance and I liked it mostly because it made me think of someone pretty special who I’ve been lucky enough to drag here from London and is here tonight!” there were cheering and Robin blushed heavily as Nick and the others awed towards her like ‘ohhhhh’. “I don’t want to get too personal or romantic because we’d be puking and I’d be the first one,” laughter, “but basically, thinking of this song I realised sometimes one can be perfectly fine with not being perfectly fine, if that makes any sense? So anyway... this is for you, lil bird. Mika’s better than I am to put into words how much you are to me.” There was a general aww and Robin pretended to be busy drinking so when people turned looking for the mysterious special person they wouldn’t realise it was her, with how much she was blushing. Lucy giggled at her.

The song in question was ‘Underwater’ by British artist MIKA, and although Robin had heard plenty of MIKA, she had never heard this one, so she found herself surprised. It wasn’t ‘Your Song’. It wasn’t the typical cheesy romantic song, but it had powerful lyrics like ‘When I fall to my feet | Wearin' my heart on my sleeve | All I see just don't make sense | You are the port of my call | You shot and leavin' me raw | Now I know you're amazing’ or ‘'Cause all I need | Is the love you breathe | Put your lips on me and | I can live underwater’ so Robin found how special it was. He was basically telling her, the way she understood it, that with her, he was fine through any storm. So she smiled at him as they locked eyes and felt herself feel so much for him she was close to tears, as she let herself be fascinated by his piano skills, marvelling on how good the piano sounded under his fingers.

**. . .**

After much dancing, singing and drinking, Robin was encouraged to go on stage only if Strike came with her, because she suddenly felt shy seeing how talented everyone was, and they made a duet of ‘Sing us a song you’re the piano man’. They were just coming outside the marquee to start walking back home at night, when Robin noticed there were farmers showing off their horses for the children, al letting them come up on them for short rides. Robin, horse-lover as she was, ran to them.

“Corm! look! horses!” she shouted like a little girl, all excited. Strike grinned following her and seeing how she was already becoming friends with one of the horses, patting it and kissing its face like a natural.

“That explains why she doesn’t mind how hairy and enormous you are,” Nick commented looking at Strike with a sneaky smile, Mackenzie asleep against his shoulder. Ilsa giggled and Strike rolled eyes with a chuckle.

“Help! Help! He stole my purse!” an old woman shouted between the multitude, pointing at a man who was running with a big purse, getting onto his motorbike, and running away faster than the police reacted. The multitude looked powerlessly and the cops started moving, but Robin was already climbing on top of the horse she had been patting and trotting towards the thief, who speed down the road.

“Robin!” Strike shouted, running alongside the cops after her. But Robin’s horse was fast and she manoeuvred it with expertise. The multitude moved to the road to watch the chasing, and Strike, breathless, stopped powerless to see. The cops stopped too, knowing that the road had a dead-end so the thief was trapped anyway, and everyone looked on amused and impressed as the red mane of Robin’s hair got closer and closer to the motorbike, speeding like a musketeer, as if Robin had done that a hundred times before.

“Giddy-up! Faster!” Robin shouted patting her horse on the neck. Then, carefully, Strike saw her ass rise up from the horse, as her hands grabbed the reins with strength, and he didn’t want to look, yet he couldn’t move his eyes off the scene.

“What’s she doing?” Leda asked, worried.

“A stupidity,” Strike murmured. And then the multitude roared and cheered as Robin jumped off the horse, throwing the thief off his bike and both falling on the thick grass next to the road, the thief under Robin, who, as if feeling no pain, straddled him and dealt a solid punch on his cheek, raising her fist up in the air afterwards.

“Want another?” Robin threatened.

“Please! Stop!” the thief begged, breathless. Police reached them and arrested the guy and Robin got off, grabbing the purse and giving it to a cop.

“For the old lady...”

“Robin Venetia Ellacott! That was dangerous!” Strike reached them, breathless, and hugged her. “Reckless, dangerous, and bloody amazing! where did you learnt that?” Robin giggled in his arms.

“That was fun, wasn’t it?! I told you my uncle and my dad have a riding academy, I’ve been riding all my childhood,” Robin grinned, pulling apart and giving him a peck on the lips. “Oh, I loved it. What a beautiful horse...” She walked and patted fondly the horse who, after noticing he was free, had just walked around like lost. “Good boy! yes you are a good boy!” she complimented him fondly.

“You’re incredible,” Strike laughed, looking at Robin and shaking his head in disbelief. Robin looked at him, and laughed too.

“All done, clean,” Leda declared, after patting with a cotton and disinfectant the scratches Robin had earned on her knees, as she had been wearing shorts. They were at Strike and Lucy’s childhood home, getting her suited-out, and Robin was sitting on the sofa while Leda sat of the coffee table and cared for her little wounds. “Good job girl!” she smiled proudly at Robin. “I’m pretty sure St. Mawes loves you now.”

“It was a blast,” Robin grinned. She felt tired after the whole night now that the adrenaline had worn off, but she was also so happy. She rarely got to do things like that in London.

“Well I’m your bodyguard so please never scare me like that again,” said Strike with a small smile as Robin stood up from the sofa.

“Oh, like you don’t do reckless things sometimes! Besides, I knew perfectly well what I was doing. I did a lot of gymkhanas back in the day.”

“Birds of a feather flock together...” Ilsa murmured to Strike with a smirk. He rolled eyes.

“Oh my God! Is this Cormoran with Lucy?” Robin was busy in front of the big bookshelf that framed the TV of the sitting-room, looking at the tons of little framed pictures. Leda walked behind her and chuckled.

“Yes indeed. He wasn’t even two yet...”

“Aww... the cutest...!” Robin looked at Strike with a pout holding the picture for him to see. “Those curls...!”

The picture showed, indeed, curls, which was a good way of briefing what Strike was. There was a head full of dark curls all unruly and pointing all directions, thick, then two big green eyes, and a round, cheeky, rosy face with a little Roman nose and eyebrows too thick for a boy so young. He had a cleft lip already fixed, so the little scar was prominent since he didn’t have a beard yet, and a few teeth could be seen. His size was already big for his age and his long arms ended in fatty hands put around newborn Lucy, who slept in his arms.

“A year later he’d almost leave me blind with a blow with a ball,” Lucy added with a small smile towards his brother.

“What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, you’re welcome,” Strike replied teasingly pinching her with a hairy finger.

 


	16. Thieves' Captain

 

_A couple months later..._

On August 29 th , Strike’s father’s birthday arrived. After a lovely month in St. Mawes, the pair had come back to London and Robin had been busy as hell with work, which inevitably caused for him to be busy as hell with work too. There was a premiere, a dozen apparitions in shows and interviews, several photo-calls, and many other events. A few weeks before, Robin had been chosen to be the star of a new BBC series, so they had many other events to attend related to that and, on that particular day, they were arriving home late from a photo-shoot.

Robin was seeing a therapist and sleeping better, so she was still full of energy and right away offered to cook them some dinner, while Strike flopped on the sofa. It was raining crazily outside. Twenty minutes later, she set two plates of pasta on the coffee table and sat putting his feet on her lap.

“Are you awake?” Robin chuckled at him, nuzzling him awake. Strike groaned. “What’s up with you, so tired? I made tortellini! You love tortellini!”

“I do,” Strike groaned sitting up and grabbing his dish. “It’s just... dad’s birthday and... I’m tired.”

“Aw, my poor thing...” Robin put her dish aside and moved closer to him cupping his face and kissing his thick curls. “It’s okay, rough day.”

“Yeah...” he nodded.

“Eat that and we’d go to bed so I can cuddle you okay?” Robin offered with a smile, making him smile a little. She was just so sweet and understanding.

After they ate their dinner, Strike felt grateful so, in his pyjamas, took the trash and went to bring it outside to the trash bins that were on the street just a few meters outside the house. Robin didn’t like going out when it was so dark outside, so he would do it instead, so unconcerned that he was just in his pyjama and flip-flops, enjoying the breeze of the summer night.

“Ah, so good out here...” he sighed for himself after getting rid of the trash, looking around. He heard a noise behind him and turned around and everything went black.

**. . .**

“Cormoran?!” Robin shouted, looking into the dark street with a lantern. Strike had gone to take the trash an hour ago and he wasn’t back yet, and she was increasingly worried, so much that she wasn’t so afraid anymore, and walked into the darkness looking around. “Cormoran!” she shouted looking around. “Cormoran! Where are you?! Cormoran!” she shut up for a while to see if she could hear him, but she had reached the trash cans and there was no sign of him. She couldn’t call him because his pyjama pants lacked pockets, so his phone had been left on his bedside table, charging. “Cormoran! This isn’t funny anymore!” she shouted, panicking. And then she saw them. His flip-flops on the ground, next to two drops of blood. Shaking hands searched for her mobile and she punched buttons, quickly. “Police? It’s actress Robin Ellacott uh... I believe my boyfriend has been forcefully kidnapped.”

Robin didn’t sleep all night and in the morning, police had half the neighbourhood covered, going back to Strike’s flip-flops, doing DNA tests on the blood drops, analysing the area for any marks of car-tires, searching with dogs.

“There’s no need to panic,” DI Anstis told Robin and Lucy as they sat in Robin’s sofa. “The kidnapers probably did it looking forward to ask you money in order to set him free, which means they’re a professional gang and will return him safely if you pay.”

“They haven’t called nor left notes, don’t you think if you were right they would’ve?” Robin asked, stressed out.

“Patience Ms. Ellacott, it’s still early. My experience is they will wait a couple days, to make sure we’re looking for him,” DI Anstis seemed all calm and relaxed, which frustrated Robin immensely.

“What if they just kill him?” asked Lucy, anxiously. Greg came and put an arm around her.

“Don’t think that way...” Greg murmured.

“But that’s what they do! Why let him live, so he denounces them?” Lucy reasoned.

“We will negotiate for the last payment to be made once Mr Strike is back home safely and alive, that way, we will assure his survival,” Anstis soothed her.

Meanwhile, Strike was miles away, waking up from his slumber in an empty basement.

“How cliché,” he grumbled, yawning and rubbing his eyes as he stood up, feeling disoriented and dizzy, using the wall for support. He looked around. There was one door that looked metallic, thick, solid. He attempted to force it open without much hopes for it to work. “Hello? Is there anyone here? I need to pee!” he roared.

“Hello, Mr Strike.” The door opened suddenly and a dark figure appeared, covered in black from head to toe with gloves, balaclava, mirrored sunglasses... Everything.

“That is not an appropriate way of dressing in August. Mine’s better, see?” Strike looked at himself, barefoot and in short-sleeved pyjamas. He wasn’t even wearing underwear. “Can I use the bathroom please?”

“This way.” Strike thought of taking the man down right then until the door opened fully to let him out and three other people looking the exact same appeared. Strike decided these were clearly professionals he better not play around with.

After a quick pee, he exited a normal-looking bathroom with no exists and was confronted by not four, but up to nine figures looking the exact same.

“All right...” Strike sighed. “What’s going on? If you want money, I’m afraid I don’t have much.”

“We want your help,” one of the figures said.

“Why me?”

“Because you are an ex SIB, you were known for being a great detective and we need someone good who can investigate nicely but also be strong and skilled.”

“And what do I earn?”

“Your life and,” the figure took a photo out of his pocket and showed it to Strike. It was Robin in her garden. “Your girlfriend’s safety. We have tracked down your sister and her sons too. Your choice.”

“Right,” Strike clenched his teeth. “What can I do for you?”

“We need to steal everything from Harry’s house, give it to the less fortunate. See? We’re good people, like Robin Hood,” another figure said. Strike snorted a laugh.

“Fine, Harry what?”

“Windsor, of course.” Another figure said. Strike’s eyes widened and his heart sank to his feet.

“You want me to steal Prince Harry’s belongings? You want me to break into Kensington Palace? Are you out of your minds?”

“We know you will probably die attempting it, but we want to know if it can be done, for you to try, and for us to, in case you fail, learn from your mistakes and keep trying,” one figure said.

“There are things there worth millions of pounds and we paid them with our taxes, so it’s not really stealing. It’s taking what’s already ours.” Another figure added.

“Listen guys, I’d do anything for my family, anything, but this cannot be done. First, I’d need to get in and there’s simply no way! the security there is high as hell, we’re talking about the military, security cameras, infiltrated police, dogs... and then how do you even get the stuff out? There’s simply no way.”

“Mr. Strike, you have been a soldier. When a superior tells you to do something, you do it. If it’s impossible, you make it possible. If you fail, we will have every person you love be killed. If you don’t even try, we will have them tortured before killing them.” Strike gulped.

“Fine. I don’t have a choice.”

Meanwhile in London, a day had passed without any news on Robin. She cleared her agenda, stepped out of the BBC series she was going to be the protagonist on, and focused all her energy on finding Strike. For that, she printed several posters with different high quality profile pictures of Strike saying:

‘ **HAVE YOU SEEN THIS MAN OR KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT WHERE HE MIGHT BE?**

**THEN PLEASE CALL 999. HIS FAMILY & FRIENDS ARE LOOKING FOR HIM.**

**HIS NAME IS CORMORAN STRIKE, HE’S 33 Y.O., FROM CORNWALL, AND HE WAS KIDNAPPED ON THE NIGHT BETWEEN AUGUST 29** **TH** **AND AUGUST 30** **TH** **2017 IN BECKENHAM, NEAR LONDON.**

**FULL DESCRIPTION:**

**16 stone, 6 feet 3 inches. Male. Scar from cleft lip. Dark green eyes. Asymmetrical nose. Dark, thick and very curly hair. Last seen he had a short, dark beard. No tattoos, no piercings. Feet size 14. He’s broad, with a general big complexion.’**

Strike’s relatives flew from Cornwall and they teamed-up with the police to look around, ask neighbours, put posters. Robin paid for his photo to appear in TV, every newspaper, every magazine, as her chest filled with anxiety praying to heavens that he wasn’t dead.

 


	17. Bye curls

Strike lied on the floor contemplating the grey ceiling. A fly was making circles and his eyes followed it lazily until it lied on the banister of the stairs that went up to the door of the basement. Suddenly the door opened and three figures came in, still covered from head to toe, one of them carrying a black sack that he threw unceremoniously at Strike’s feet.

“Clothes,” said the guy. “Change. Fifteen minutes.”

“Fine,” Strike took the sack and the group left him alone, closing the door behind them. Strike let a long sigh out and opened the sack, pulling out dark jeans, a dark button-down shirt and a brown jacket. Strike saw no underwear so he put the clothes over his pyjama, and then put on the dark socks and dark boots that were in the bag, casually his size. He was happy to feel a bit less cold.

Exactly fifteen minutes after he had been given the sack, as Strike could imagine, the group came again, this time they were up to eleven people and Strike was impressed. How big was this gang?

“Accompany us,” one of them said, moving to let him pass through the door. Strike did as he was told with military obedience and he was guided to a small bathroom and given a towel and a shaving machine. “You need to shave your hair and beard, you’re too recognisable.” Strike nodded with a serious face and was left alone. 

“I’ll do it because I want to, not because you tell me,” Strike murmured once he was alone like a child with a paddy. He turned the machine on and shaved his beard and then sighed at his curls. “Sorry guys...” he murmured before shaving his whole head. It was like being a cadet all over again.

When he got out of the bathroom, he was given another bag.

“Put on the beanie and the water tattoos on your hands and neck.”

“What the... Seriously? Temporary tats?” One of the figures had a paper roll in his hand and he unrolled it to show Strike a ‘Have you seen’ photo of himself.

“They describe no tattoos and curly hair and beard, so... With the temporary tattoos we’d be able to change them every day so no one recognises you.” Strike wasn’t happy at all.

After he was all ready, he was guided through a long, dark corridor with no striking characteristics and into a big, round room with blinds closed in the windows and therefore illuminated with artificial light. There was nothing fancy in the room, just a big round table covered in papers and pictures and surrounded by thirteen chairs, that were occupied by Strike and the rest of the gang. One of the gang members moved to handcuff Strike’s wrists together, which he obviously didn’t appreciate at all, and made sure his grumpy face expressed it.

“Now, my friends, time to remove this shit,” one of the figures, with an all too familiar voice, sitting in front of Strike, spoke. All at once, everyone removed their glasses, hats and balaclavas, and Strike saw different faces and his stomach fell to his feet. Now he knew they were going to kill him, because they wouldn’t allow witnesses to live on. He thought of Robin and his family; he had to make sure they lived on, even if he didn’t.

When Strike looked at the man in front of him, his eyes widened in recognition.

“Dad...”

**. . .**

“No one has called me,” Robin insisted on DI Antis. “I’m telling you, they’re not in it for the money...!”

“Patience, Ms Ellacott,” DI Anstis repeated for what seemed like the umpteenth time. Robin felt her blood boil.

“Patience?! He could be dead!”

“We are doing everything we can...”

“It’s not enough!”

They were in DI Anstis’ office, where Robin had gone looking for the detective after lunch, going after the case another time.

“We haven’t found any evidence, not even prints, aside from the drops of blood, that aren’t Mr Strike’s, and the flip-flops, so this reinforces the idea that they’re professionals looking for money. I propose this, if they aren’t offering, be the first to communicate. Offer money.”

Robin was panting angrily as she left Scotland Yard murmuring death threats and murmuring a ranting of curses and hexes along with ideas of where could Antis introduce his ideas. As she walked along Tottenham Court Road, she started putting on posters again, walking to Chelsea and adding more posters, stopping to scribble in each poster with a pen: ‘EVERY BIT OF USEFUL INFORMATION WILL BE REWARDED WITH £500’.

She had an appointment to appear at BBC News that evening so she had dinner in the City while staring sadly at the pictures in her phone taken in Cornwall, her eyes fixed on her favourite; Strike and she kissing in Land’s End at dawn. 

“Please be safe,” she murmured to herself. The only thought keeping her and Strike’s family sane was knowing that he was a veteran and could take care of himself, but she still got anxious.

Not so far away from her, Strike looked around his surroundings hoping to see her, just like he had seen the many posters literally  _everywhere_ with his face in big, his eyes more prominent with some effect so people would look at it and remember his face. Must’ve been Robin’s doing; she did photo-shoots constantly, she knew how they used certain tricks. He was surrounded by four big guys, one of them, his own father, for his own astonishment, as they walked around Kensington Palace as part of the tourist tour. There were huge gardens here and there, big trees, policeman, and he wished anyone could see he was kidnapped, he was Cormoran Strike, not Michael Thornton like his fake ID now said. The positive part of that ID was that the gang wasn’t very imaginative so they had gone along with the name Strike had suggested, not knowing that it was the name of Robin’s father and the surname of her mother. Strike was planning on ‘losing’ the ID, hoping for it to go to the police so they’d find out he had been there. He didn’t know how would Robin see it, but he hoped the profile picture in it was enough. He was disguised as Thornton, but if looked up close it was still evident he looked like Strike. Even the birth date was a mixture of Robin’s and his own, and the birth place was Wandsworth, where Nick and Ilsa lived. The mentions to his own life where many and obvious.

“You know, son, I expected a warmer greeting on your side,” Everett Strike smiled at him, putting an arm around his shoulders. His blue eyes, so much like Lucy’s, looked cold now, and his curls were white. He was shaven, while all the time Strike had known him, he had a beard, and now he used glasses. Or perhaps it was just as to not be recognised.

“You left us,” grumbled Strike, clenching his teeth. “Twenty fucking years thinking you exploded in pieces, and all this time you were pretending? After all the pain you put us through? Do you have any idea how traumatic it was? I became a fucking addict because of you, while you were out there having fun, and now you’re a criminal!” he hissed under his breath. “Your eldest grandson is named James fucking Everett, if Lucy knew the kind of man you truly are...”

“I am a good person, son,” said Everett calmly. “I had to leave you, and you must believe me I’ve missed you all for twenty years, but as you can see, I’ve always been watching over you. I know my grandsons’ birthdays. I love my family. I’m proud of all you’ve become.”

“All lies,” Strike hissed, as they walked around the garden. “Then why, uh? Why leave all we had to become a gangster?”

“I wanted to do a greater good! I saw no sense anymore on shooting Afghans and I understood if I could just take care of our people without breaking families... Isn’t that the true duty of a soldier? Luce and you, you used to love Robin Hood and the last time I read it to you both to sleep, I realised I needed to become Robin Hood. I was sick of going on wars risking my life while my leaders were rich and living in luxury doing nothing for us, not fighting or anything... so I decided I would balance things and make justice. But if they ever caught me, you’d all pay, so I needed to fake my death. It was the hardest decision I’ve ever made, son... but I did it because I wanted to do something better. I saw people in hunger and poverty every day... I needed to do something. So now I steal from millionaires who never worked hard for what they have, and give it to the poor. No one gets killed. What’s so bad about that? You’ve seen where our organisation lives; we are humble. We only take what’s enough to live and the rest goes to the poor.”

“You broke our family and the laws we believe in,” Strike glared at him. “And you’re too narcissistic to see how wrong what you’re doing is. Now you’re going to murder your own son. Good job, dad.”

“I would never let them hurt you,” Everett scowled at him. “I’ve always protected you all. Who was the anonymous who donated the most into Lucy’s crowdfunding campaign to go to university? Who broke the nose of that boyfriend your mum had once who used to shout at her all the time? Who did you think sold a boat so cheap so you could buy it to your uncle? Who sent flowers anonymously to your grandparents when they were in hospital? Who, for the love of God, leaves flowers at your daughter and wife’s graves every Sunday? I did. All of it, it was me all along. And you know what else?” Everett rambled under his breath, glaring at Strike. “I was there to make sure the people in the rehab centre made discounts on you and your mother. I was sitting right next to your bed at some point every time you’ve been asleep in the hospital, when no one was looking. I made the BBC people consider Robin for that role weeks ago, they chose her for her merits, but she wasn’t in the list at first. And when you were in the car thing, I was the one calling 999 standing by the river. I was there to make sure you two got out of the water and I was willing to jump if I saw no movement. And same with your sister and the rest of the family. Family visits, anonymous gifts... I did it all. That time Lucy won the lottery? I made sure she did. I was there at both of your weddings. I promised myself that as long as I lived my family would be well taken-care-of.” Strike was astonished, but that didn’t hide the anger he felt for that man.

“That doesn’t make-up for twenty years of absence and you forget that many of our issues came because you weren’t there, you bastard. We didn’t want money; we wanted you.”

“Trevor,” one of the gang tapped Everett’s shoulder and pointed to a corridor. “Perhaps we could enter that way?”

Strike shook his head, and tried not to boil inside. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know I haven't updated in a while any of my stories, but truth is the lack of reviews makes me think no one cares if I update this or not so I figure why lose my time grabbing the laptop and updating when I could be doing other stuff? I truly do enjoy writing and for me, I get the same joy even if I don't publish. The entire fic is written, I already had joy with it, publishing is only to share it if people like it.
> 
> Finally I've decided to put up this chapter, but I've decided I won't publish any other of this story unless I get 5 reviews, and that way I can filter and don't lose time updating stories that don't interest much in favour of updating more often those that do get petitions for more chapters. After all, a writer doesn't publish another book of a saga if the one before is not bought. This will go on until this story ends, if you get to see the end. This is not out of anger or anything, not really, but I think us fanfic writers need to have some pride, you know? I think we work very hard to create aditional content, and if no one cares we're equally happy writing it for ourselves and don't losing time putting it up online only so someone can steal the work (which happens very often) but we get 0 credit.


	18. Family feuds

The Robin Hood gang and Strike sat on a huge rag on cushions around the old TV eating take-out while watching TV. True to his word, Everett hadn’t bought a single chair and the house lacked sofas or anything like it. The beds were simply mattresses on the floor here and there. Strike had heard some members of the gang complain, but Everett was the leader and his word was the last word in every discussion. He was also the oldest, in his sixties.

They were watching the BBC evening News and Everett had even apologised for drugging him with chloroform to kidnap him, and for disrupting his life. Strike was still bitter, angry and resentful, and he missed his comfy sofa and the bed and Robin snuggled between his arms and her flowered scent.

“Oh, look at that! If it isn’t the girlfriend,” a girl from the gang smirked dryly at Strike, whose eyes fixed on the screen. There was Robin, stunningly beautiful, talking about Strike’s kidnapping.

“We’re currently offering £500 for every piece of valuable information,” Robin was saying, sitting with her pretty blouse and her skirt, “and £300,000 to anyone who brings him home. £1,000,000 if he’s back alive. I’ll pay the money personally from my pocket.” The gang started wooing and laughing enthusiastic.

“She really must love you!” one of the gang laughed. Strike felt a lump in his throat and he couldn’t stop looking at Robin. He wasn’t hungry anymore. He knew Robin was rich, but she wasn’t billionaire, which meant she was risking losing her entire patrimony over him.

“That is a lot of money,” one of the interviewers said.

“He’s my boyfriend, and I will spare no expense to bring him back. He’s a veteran, a good person who’s saved my life many times, and he can expect no less insistence from me in having him be okay. His family is doing everything they can, but they can’t give what they simply don’t have, so I promised them I would do all I could,” said Robin, serious and looking sad underneath her seriousness. Strike knew, because he loved happy bright eyes that weren’t there anymore. “I consider this country owes him a lot, as a former soldier, and so do the many people who he has body-guarded over the years, from whom we haven’t heard a word yet, by the way, and they are rich too.” She added resentfully.

“I like her,” Everett commented. “Well done, son.”

“I assume you’ve investigated her too?”

“Highest marks her entire career. She’s got a doctorate she never brags about,” Everett commented. Strike, who didn’t know that, hid his surprise to avoid giving him the satisfaction. “She’s a hardworking woman, deserves the luxuries she enjoys, and she’s gone through enough shit with that husband who, by the way, was greeted in prison with the beating up he deserves thanks to yours truly. We respect hard-work, which is why we haven’t assaulted her house.”

“Thanks,” Strike murmured dryly.

“What would you say to the kidnappers and to Cormoran if they were seeing you right now?” the other interviewer said. “That’s your camera.”

A camera focused on Robin and she took a deep breath before looking at it.

“If you’ve got him, I beg you to bring him back home. He’s a good man. He doesn’t deserve this bullshit, he’s had enough. If you want money, I’ll give you until my last penny, and if it’s some personal thing, I’m sure we can sort things out and reach an agreement, but please, bring him home alive. Don’t hurt him. If you must take someone... I beg you to take me instead.” She said with glassy eyes. The gang cheered again, mocking her, and Strike’s eyes filled with tears of rage.

“Shut up, you disgusting tits!” Everett ordered, and silence reigned.

“And Cormoran, babe, if you’re watching...” Robin’s voice quivered but she regained her composure quickly. “Just hold on, and don’t worry because we will bring you back home and sooner rather than later, we’ll be... filling ourselves with pizza over some shitty movie again,” she smiled a little and rubbed one eye. “And uh... I love you, okay? So... take care of yourself and we’ll do the rest. I promise you I won’t rest until you’re back to safety.”

They bid farewell to Robin after that and Strike stormed to the basement, his new bedroom, and sat on a corner hugging his knees and clenching his fists. He was boiling with so much anger and outrage he was shaking, breathing erratically, and he had to remind himself to take deep breaths. He was angry he was taken, angry about the Robin Hood’s crimes, angry about Robin’s and his family’s suffering, angry about his father and all he had done, and the more he thought about any of those, the angrier he got, but he could also not stop himself from thinking about them.

“Corm...” Everett stood cautiously by him. Strike glared at him, and he sat in front of Strike. “I’m so sorry about all of this, Cormoran. I wish there was another way.”

“There is,” Strike grumbled. “Leave them behind. Come home with me. Start over. Say they took you too. We can kill them together.” Everett looked sad and shook his head.

“They’re starting to rebel against me. I’ve got plans on doing something but at the same time betraying them feels wrong... and I would stop being able to do all the good we’re doing. I need to stay and keep helping people.” Strike sighed and shook his head.

“What about threatening with killing our family, uh? So much for a man who claims he’d never hurt his family.”

“It was empty threats, son. Just to convince you to stick around... look, you can go. But if you go... it’ll be me who pays the prize. They’ll say I let you go.”

“You shouldn’t put me in this problem. I don’t want to be here. What you’re doing is treason, I refuse to collaborate with that, so you can find yourself another bastard who does...”

“They will kill you,” Everett said seriously. “I’m telling you they’re rebelling against me. If you leave, they will go and kill our family, no matter what I do. Is that what you want?”

“Is that what _you_ want?” Strike glared at him. “You put me here! Your own son! Is your fault our family’s at risk! Why did you have to take me?”

“I thought you’d help me do some good and not be an ungrateful arse! What we are doing is heroes work! Don’t you want to help people?”

“I don’t want to commit treason! If we get caught dad, we’re never leaving prison,” Strike was having a hard time not punching the man. “Don’t you fucking understand?! We made an oath to our royals, to our Law, to our country! Robbery is not only breaking the law, but robbing the Prince is fucking treason, and let me tell you, if we get arrested I will tell them what you’ve done.”

“You’d betray your father?!” Everett looked hurt and indignant.

“He betrayed me and my family and my country, he’s a criminal, and he deserves to go to prison for what he’s done,” Strike glared at him with teary eyes. “You know what dad? All this time I thought my father died a hero. I wish that’s what happened, that you were dead, because this... This isn’t the man I admired and loved. You’ve become a criminal and a traitor and the worst is you don’t even see it. You’ve betrayed everyone who trusted and loved you, you’ve lied to us, and you’ve betrayed the country you swore to fight for. Say what you want, that is for the poor and whatever... but is robbery. That’s what it is. Justifying a crime doesn’t make it less of a crime, remember? That’s what you always said.”

“Well at least you’re not the only one disappointed. I thought my son had some balls and that I had given him eyes and vision to see what’s wrong even if it’s suited like a King. I thought I taught you to see just because someone’s important and well-suited doesn’t mean they’re a good person. That sometimes you have to betray your bosses if you know what they’re doing isn’t right, because your first duty is with the people. Where did you leave that? Would you also defend Hitler if he was the King?”

“Don’t compare the Royal Family with fucking Hitler!” Strike hissed. “So they’re rich, so what? It’s unfair, but perhaps they’ve earned it, what do you know about all the sweat and tears they’ve poured? Who are you to question them? As long as there isn’t a single rule in this country that says being rich without having earned it enough is a crime, I won’t be in your side. You’re such a disappointment I’m going to chose to bury my father twenty years ago and pretend you aren’t him, that you’re just a look-alike.”

“Good for you!” Everett roared, angrily getting up. Strike got up too and punched him across the face, breaking his nose. Then he grabbed him from the neck of the shirt and threw him against the wall. Everett, old as he was in his late sixties, fell to the floor with a thud.

“You think this makes me happy?! Have you got any idea how hard I wished to see you once more?! To tell you how much you meant to me?! Do you know what it was to hear Lucy cry calling your name every day and night?!” Strike rubbed the tears of anger away from his face. “You taught me to protect my family no matter what and now you’re a threat to every little good thing I’ve got left in my life. I lost my wife, I lost my daughter... and now thanks to you I may lost the only woman I’ve been capable of loving afterwards. The best person who’s ever come into my life to take me as I am and love me for who I am even with the rough edges. Someone so purely good you wouldn’t dare to breath her same air. And not just that but mum? Ted, Joan, my cousins? Lucy, Greg and the boys? What will happen to them if these people choose to stop obeying you, uh?! Don’t you realise how reckless and irresponsible you’ve been, how much you’re a danger to your own family, how you’ve put all of our lives on the line selfishly?!” Strike shouted at him, and kicked him on the stomach angrily. Everett hissed, and stood up with hands over his bleeding nose, staring at him in disbelief. “I’ve invested twenty years of my life of pulling our family together back on our feet and you are going to get them killed with your selfishness. Your three little grandsons, and Ilsa and Nick and their baby girl. Thank you dad. That’s how awesome you are. But tell you what; I’m going to break my back to keep them safe and take down this disaster you’ve put up, and if you stand in my way I won’t doubt to bring you down too. If you still had a fibre of honour, you’d be helping me, but you’re too much of a selfish, coward without honour so I don’t expect anything good from you. You’re such a disappointment and I hope no one ever has to know who you truly are because it would kill our family of sadness. Get out of here right now before I kill you with my own bare hands.”

Everett directed him a glance of a mixture of anger and outmost sadness, and left upstairs.

 


	19. Trouble

Richard Anstis rushed into Robin’s house when she and Strike’s family were just having dinner on the eight day after Strike was kidnapped. He looked triumphal and they immediately looked up at him with eyes full of hope as he made his way to the dining room holding a folder in his hands. Michael Ellacott, who had brought his clan to London to help looking around for Strike –they were now dividing to look into surrounding boroughs- rushed to stand up and find a foldable chair for Anstis, offering it to him and sitting in polite silence.

“We’ve got a clue,” said Anstis. “The cameras in Kensington Palace have detected a group of men have been doing the same touristic tour to the palace five times this week, it sparked suspicion. It isn’t the exact same group every day, you can see how some members take turns to not come one day and come the next, as if they didn’t want to spark suspicion, but they did anyway. Some members are identified members of a clan called ‘Robin Hood’, we’ve been after them for years now. They are suspects of stealing from over two hundred houses only in the past three years, they’re professionals, and later on we suspect they give the money away to the poor, hence the name.”

“That doesn’t sound too bad,” Linda murmured.

“Well, it’s treason if they assault Kensington Palace, for sure. We suspect they want to commit a robbery on the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge’s residence.”

“But what does it have to do with my son?” Leda asked.

“Isn’t this your son?” Anstis handed Leda a bunch of pictures from his folder. Lucy and Robin rushed to stand behind her to look over her shoulders as Leda went over the pictures. “He’s been disguised to be hard to recognise, has what I suspect, since they change per day, are temporary tattoos and he alternates between wearing beanies, hats or nothing, which shows he did not only shave, but get a haircut.”

“Yeah... yeah, this is my son, no doubt,” Leda frowned, looking at the pictures. Lucy and Robin nodded in agreement. “But Cormoran would never be involved with such a criminal band! He’s a veteran, he wouldn’t commit treason, and he wouldn’t steal or assault a house. Never.”

“He doesn’t seem very forced though,” Anstis commented casually.

“Cormoran would never engage in criminal activities, and even less against the Royal Family,” Robin said firmly. “At least we can breathe in relief knowing he’s alive, but I’m sure they’re forcing him to do this. Perhaps that’s why they got him, right? Since offering money has been worthless so far.”

“Yeah, I was brooding on such possibility,” said Anstis, nodding. “In any case, they’re professionals, they know what they’re doing. They don’t seem to be suspecting we’ve already caught them though, so we’re going to keep tracks on them, don’t try anything so they don’t suspect and we can surprise them by ambushing them when they commit the assault.”

“Wait, but we must be in great danger,” Ted realised, his ex-SIB mind always sharp. “Cormoran wouldn’t help them unless he thought otherwise we’d be in danger, they must have threatened with hurting us. And they know where Robin lives, because they took Strike right outside the door, so they probably know where we all live.”

“Since we already had police guarding your backs, we’ll just be stricter with that. But we must continue doing searches, pretend we know nothing, so if they’re watching us, they keep thinking they’re winning. I already got a team trying to locate where they live following their routes through street cameras, CTV circuits, and cameras of every establishment around. Now this isn’t just about Cormoran; the royals could be at risk. This could become terrorism quickly.”

“I wouldn’t worry much about the royals,” Robin frowned. “If Cormoran’s inside, he won’t let them get hurt. He’s smart, bright. He’ll do all he can to protect innocent lives, the problem is that such attitude could cost his life so please, hurry up Detective Inspector Anstis.”

Far from Beckenham, the Robin Hood gang had already been investigating for their big day for several days, and they felt prepared to go on with the assault. For days, Strike hadn’t directed a word to anyone unless it was absolutely necessary, and his hostility was evident. He had been trying to come up with ways of ending them all, and he thought perhaps on the assault it would be a good opportunity. He had asked the gang for paper and pen to write down ideas for the assault and, behind their backs, while he pretended to be going to the bathroom when they ate outside and he was sure they wouldn’t be able to keep cameras on him, he wrote all the gang was doing, the names he learned of some members, and Strike’s repulsion to the facts, for whoever would see it. On the last day they went to Kensington Palace for some last minute research, he made sure the gang wasn’t looking and looked straight in the eyes of a tourist guide before sliding the carefully folded paper in her hand with a meaningful look, sliding his fake ID along the paper. He mouthed: ‘Help’ and the woman nodded with wide eyes. When Strike was leaving, he turned around for a brief moment, and saw her reading the paper and moving to a security guard. The paper instructed to call Robin Ellacott and the detective in charge of the kidnapping of Cormoran Strike immediately.

The assault would happen that same night. While the gang dressed as Strike had known them, all covered and dark, Strike was given a suit to pretend to be one of the service workers of Prince Harry, who conveniently, was on a trip to the States, which silently relaxed Strike. Strike was in charge of getting inside his house with the rest of the service and opening the way for the rest of the gang, and although they seemed very content with their hard-worked plan, Strike could only see flaws to it and started being surprised that these people were professionals, even though the mask they made him was pretty professional, changing his face to completely look like someone else with stunning realism. Strike had made two replicas of the paper he had given the tourist guide and had them stuffed inside his pyjama pants, since they had a cord, which meant they had a hole through which the cord passed, a hole were two tiny papers rolled-up could fit and be undetected for the gang, as his pyjama pants were under his normal pants.

“Good luck, son,” Everett wished Strike as they hid inside a public restroom by Kensington Gardens. “And if anything goes wrong...” Everett, visibly emotional, his nose still purple, and his personality quite crestfallen since their fight, tentatively put a hand on his shoulder and squeezed. “I love you and I’m deeply sorry for everything. I hope one day you can forgive me.”

“I hope one day I can put you and all of your friends in prison where you belong,” Strike grunted, resentful. “I hate you and if anything happens to me, it’ll be your fault. I will never forgive you and I will never rest in peace until every single one of you is in prison. I just hope that this traumatic few days don’t bring my arse back into drugs after I swore someone I’d look after myself.” Everett looked about to cry and Strike turned around, going to his mission and praying to be able to stop this nonsense.

If the tourist guide had done her job, it meant police was alerted and Robin and his family were somewhere safe, surrounded by police. If he could manage to escape and talk with someone, he’d be able to ensure their safety and then run for his life or hope police could protect him too. He was sure, however, the tourist guide had done her job; as he entered the workers’ entrance of Kensington Palace, he saw more policemen than usual.

The gang didn’t want for him to have cameras or microphones to communicate with them because if he got caught (and they were content with sacrificing him, no matter what Everett said), those things could lead police to them. This gave Strike a newfound freedom. While the gang thought he was still afraid they’d hurt his family, he knew his family was safe and he could act almost freely, but it was still important they didn’t get caught today, he was sure his message in his papers said so, because otherwise the gang would run away and they’d never catch them. Strike needed to come back and drive them to an ambush.

And hour into the palace he was happily pretending to be cleaning Prince Harry’s bedroom while having already given the papers, and a policeman had assured him they knew what was going on and DI Anstis had eyes on him and his people, and they trusted Strike’s plan and would go with it. They communicated very privately, just in case the gang had managed to get eyes inside.

Just in time, the fire alarm went off and the palace filled with so much police and firemen in a matter of minutes that Strike, running away from the palace, knew there was no way the gang would proceed with the assault now that the palace was surrounded and the attention on it was bigger than ever. And they couldn’t blame Strike.

“I think it was a cop smoking,” said Strike, removing his mask and make-up in the sitting-room (to call it something) of the gang’s house. “The fire alarm went off and then it was chaos, police coming in and evacuating. We’ll have to give it another try in a couple weeks, when they’ve calmed down. Good news for you is that I found out it was easier than we thought; less police than I had initially thought.” As he turned around, he saw he was in trouble.

He had been caught.

 

 


	20. Rollercoaster

Forcombe Road, Tonbridge, was the area in which the gang lived. The road formed, at one point, a tiny bridge that passed over a small river, and on that bridge they stood now, in the middle of the night, and Strike wasn’t liking it one bit. Everett had tried to help him, but they had kicked his arse and now he sat there full of cuts and bruises, stripped of all power, terrified, just like Strike, as much as he didn’t want to admit it. He was handcuffed and cold and there was a trunk just big enough for him at his feet. Chains rested next to it so they could make sure he never got out and his heart was about to get off his chest. He was a soldier, yes, but he also had fears and being buried alive and fully awake was one of them. Drowning was another, and both put together? He was near a panic attack. He wondered if they knew.

“Get in,” the new gang boss instructed. Strike’s stomach flipped. They were going to make him do it himself? He didn’t want to die. How ironic it was that when he didn’t wish to die anymore, for once in twenty years, he found death? He didn’t fear death, thought, what truly scared him was the way to go. And he thought of Robin, and his family... he didn’t want them to cry.

“Make me,” Strike argued stubbornly.

“Listen to me, you brat,” the boss said. “If you don’t get in on your own free will, I will break your legs until you beg me to kill you, then I will get you in myself.”

‘Think of Houdini’ Strike thought ‘perhaps you can get out. Of course you can get out’.

“Fine,” Strike took a shaky breath, but he couldn’t move. His eyes filled with tears and he chastised himself. He didn’t want to give them the satisfaction of crying, he had never cried in the army, facing death every day, but now... he thought of how much pain his family had suffered. Of Robin suffering somewhat what he suffered with Charlotte, and he was shaking like a leaf. She’d live a life of pain now. She loved him. And he was going to agonise to his death. She’d always know he suffered and torture herself. Police knew where the house of the gang was, they were surely on their way now, they’d find him in a few days with some luck. Or an activist for ecology would, seeing a trunk in a fucking river. They started laughing and mocking him. What would come sooner? Hypothermia? Asphyxiation? A heart attack? And he did what he didn’t want to do. “Please,” he begged, hating himself as a tear rolled down his cheek. “Please have mercy. I swear I didn’t betray you.” They laughed openly now, loudly. Everett looked down. “Please! At least let’s wait until the morning, let me see the sun once more!” he sobbed, thinking of Robin. Oh, how he missed. He would’ve paid to hug her once more, smell her scent and sink in her arms once more.

Strike realised not everyone was laughing, only the eight more sadists of the group. Everett looked to be silently sobbing, and the rest looked like they were mortified and too afraid to do something. They were Robin Hoods, or so they thought, not murderers and not like this.

“Everett!” Strike roared. “Look at mum and Lucy in the eye, and tell them you let this happen! That they killed me and you looked like the coward you are! That you’re a murderer! Tell them at my funeral, will you?!”

“For fucks sakes,” one of the gang members who wasn’t laughing said. “Can’t we give him morphine? We have tons of it and since when are we cold-blooded murderers? Let’s put him to sleep so he doesn’t feel a thing.” There was a general murmur of agreement between the ones who weren’t laughing and the boss acceded between grilled teeth. Strike didn’t know if he was thankful he could just go to sleep or resentful he wouldn’t stand a chance to escape.

“Let Everett do it,” one of the gang said, laughing with the others. Chloroform was put out of the car and a cloth was soaked in it before it was given to Everett.

Strike locked eyes with Everett and as his father walked to him, Strike felt his heart rhythm accelerate. He was really going to do this. He was going to kill his own son with his own bare hands. Strike tried to step back, but was met with the fence of the bridge, and Everett grabbed him with one strong arm and, as much as Strike tried to resist and look away, Everett managed to press the cloth against his face. Strike tried not to breathe, but he couldn’t hold his breath long enough, since he knew chloroform takes at least five minutes to knock you out. Everett cried in silence as he forced Strike, and Strike tossed and wriggled trying to get free, but eventually he knew he couldn’t escape. This was how he ended, after all the things he had survived. He realised then than Everett had been trying to sush him, to make noises to relax him.

“Just breathe deep, son, it’s going to be okay,” Everett murmured. Strike blinked tears away and took a deep breath. “That’s it... is just like going to sleep, I promise you... I’m so sorry for all I’ve done... my sweet child, please forgive me because I did wrong and I love you and I don’t want to lose you.” Minutes later, when Strike could feel himself so calm and his weight practically held by Everett as he looked at the stars, no longer capable of thinking of how indignant, unfair and cruel the situation was and how angry he was at Everett, the older man seemed to hug him close, and Strike could smell his scent, the exact same that he had when he was younger. “I will come to the rescue, boy.” Everett whispered before kissing his forehead. “Daddy’s got your back. Always.”

**. . .**

“We’re close,” Anstis announced as he drove at full speed, preceding the ambulances and other police cars, sirens ringing in the air. “The call said it was a bridge near where Strike said, it has to be right there.” He pointed through the window.

“Just hurry up please,” Robin rushed. She had insisted on accompanying Anstis, and he hadn’t had time to argue her.

They finally saw the bridge and took another way to get down to the river, until they were by the riverside. Robin had to zip up her jacket at how cold the night was, after having been raining for a few minutes. The police got out of their cars and registered the dark area with their lanterns while the ambulances waited nearby between the trees. Robin too pulled a lantern and looked around. Thinking it was a rock or some kind of animal, she carefully approached a big lump by the riverside, and then gasped seeing it was two people.

“CORMORAN!” She shouted, running to it. Police ran behind her and they moved what seemed like a soaked person lying on top of another. As they rolled the person off Strike, they saw it was a dead old man, with at least six bullet wounds.

“Seems like he was shot from behind,” one of the cops said examining it. Robin was already busy with the other man, who was indeed Cormoran, covered by a blood-soaked jacket and completely soaked.

“Corm!” Robin palmed the pale face, lips blue, trying to wake him up. “Corm, come on!” he was cold beneath her fingers, and pressing her fingers to his neck, she couldn’t find a pulse.

“Shit...” Anstis stood by them. “Shit!”

“Do something! Paramedics!” Robin shouted. “Here!”

“He’s dead,” an EMT said approaching them and pressing his fingers against Strike’s neck checking for a pulse.

“You need to try okay? He may just be hypothermic, perhaps with some warming up...” The EMT had started CPR manoeuvre. Another paramedic rushed to help and a third one brought an oxygen mask and heating bags that they started using to try and bring Strike back from the dead.

“It may be for nothing, but luckily he went unconscious a very short time ago,” one of the paramedics who stood around said, pulling Robin away to give more space to the ones that were working on Strike.

It took several long, anguishing minutes, but finally Strike gasped for air, coughed several times, and his eyes half opened as his body shook from the cold. The paramedics covered him with blankets and Robin rushed to his side kissing his face with sobs of relief.

“It’s okay baby, you’re okay, you’re safe,” Robin whispered time and time again, hugging him close.

 

 

 


	21. Hospital

Everyone looked exhausted as they waited standing in one of the many corridors of Croydon University Hospital, after Strike had been first stabilized in another hospital nearer where he had been found and then moved there a couple hours afterwards, since this hospital was bigger, nearer his family, and better equipped. Strike had been admitted for monitoring for a couple days to ensure he was okay enough to go back home. After all, he had been literally brought back from the dead, and that was something to be taken seriously.

Strike’s mother, Lucy, Nick, Ted, Joan, Robin and Linda stood around just waiting for the doctor to exit Strike’s room and give them any sort of information, while they waited outside the door and the sun rose outside the hospital walls. Finally, a tall female doctor with long brunette hair up in a messy bum and a serious-but-sympathetic expression got out of the room and smiled softly at them.

“How is he, doctor?” Leda, who was an ex-nurse, quickly asked.

“He’s stable and he seems reasonably okay, but I wouldn’t send him home just yet,” the doctor commented softly. “He’s still a bit hypothermic, so we’re steadily warming him up, and there was an excess of water in his lungs, that has already been sucked out, which suggest he drowned, so we are monitoring his heart and lungs and making sure everything continues to work just fine. Mr Strike claims not to remember anything after assaulting Kensington Palace, which is plausible not just because of how traumatic the events are but also because he has a small concussion that suggests he may have bumped against a rock or something inside the river. It should cause him some pain, since we can’t give him any painkillers due to his record. Also, a toxicology exam concluded he seems to have inhaled big quantities of chloroform, so it’s possible he was drugged before being thrown in the river, and in big quantities chloroform can be very dangerous so it’s another reason to keep him in for a bit. You’d be happy to know the blood found on him doesn’t belong to him, as he’s got no more than a few bruises. He’s asleep now, but you can make him company for a couple hours.”

They entered a small, dark room, with one single bed and a single lamp turned on. It smelled of hospital, as it’s the only way such mixture of antiseptic and clean sheets can be described, and Strike was sure enough, snoring away snuggled up in a bed, under so many covers his face barely poked out like a bird in a nest. His short hair had grown just a micro bit more and started to curls forming little serpentines over his head, and his face was already covered in heavy stubble. Leda was quick to stand by his bed, kiss his forehead tenderly, and caress his face like if he was a little kid. Robin was happy to see his lips were red again and aside from a bit battered, he looked healthy, less pale and not much skinnier than Robin remembered him.

It wasn’t until the noon visiting turn that they heard about Anstis once again. Leda and Lucy were sitting by the sleeping Strike chatting quietly about something children-related; Ted had gone to sleep, and so had Nick, so instead Joan, Ilsa, and Ilsa’s parents were around also chatting quietly with Michael and Linda, and Robin, who had been awake all night and barely slept for days, was sleeping on the sofa. Greg had come right from leaving the children at nursery and the youngest, the baby, with his parents, and stood by Lucy. Strike was asleep still, and they had been warned he’d probably sleep the day off, out of emotional and physical exhaustion. Then Anstis came into the room after a quick knocking, and Lucy and Leda quickly looked up. Anstis looked troubled.

“Is everything alright, Detective Inspector?” Leda inquired politely.

“Yes, I was just wondering... would it be possible to discuss something with you?”

“Of course, we’re all family here so feel free. What do you wish to know?”

“Uh, your husband...” Anstis flopped on a vacated stool near Leda. “I understand he was killed in combat, is that right?”

“Indeed, twenty years ago,” Leda nodded.

“I’m sorry to meddle, Mrs Strike, but uh, did you ever actually bury his body, or was it... empty grave?” Lucy frowned and Leda’s eyes widened slightly.

“It was an empty grave. He exploded and there was nothing but blood to be found, and a slice of skin. DNA matched,” Leda explained. “Would you mind telling me where you want to go with these questions?”

“Well uh... I... We’ve found your husband, Mrs. He’s dead now but, according to our forensic team, he was alive until just about last night, when he was shot dead. He was the man we found lying on top of your son, we believe he was protecting him or practising CPR perhaps, when he was surprised and shot from behind. We also believed, because he was soaked, that he was the one who got Cormoran out of the water.” Leda and Lucy looked shocked at him. Robin, who had woken up with the new visitor, frowned from the sofa, still sleepy and wondering if she had heard right.

“That’s impossible,” Lucy declared. “It doesn’t make any sense. If he was alive, he would’ve contacted us twenty years ago. Must be a twin brother we didn’t know he had, or a cousin, or something.”

“We found old scars that match with the record of wounds Mr Strike had in the army and with the description your mother just made of what was found. We have an exact DNA match and comparing it with a sample we got from Cormoran, the match indicates he’s at least his father, for sure,” Anstis explained. “I understand this is very hard to assimilate, I just wanted to keep you informed. He had nothing that could identify him, but we believe he lived under a false identity, using his middle name, James, which is a fairly common British name, to avoid dawning suspicion. He had these belongings on him that further confirm his identity.” He pulled an evidence bag from his jacket pocket and gave it to Leda. It contained three envelopes, a watch and a wallet. “You can keep it. They were in his jacket, which was dry because he must’ve taken it off before submerging in the water.”

Leda opened the bag and pulled out the envelopes. Each had one name. ‘Leda’, ‘Luce’ and ‘Corm’.

“This is his handwriting, I’m sure,” Leda gave hers to Lucy, and put the other two in her purse. Lucy held the envelope with trembling hands and then looked to the bag.

“I remember the watch, it’s the exact same, isn’t it?” Lucy asked her mother with teary eyes. Leda nodded, pulling it out of the bag, and looking at it. It no longer seemed to work, since it was probably the one thing Everett had left on, instead of inside his jacket. Lucy took it and held back a sob as she recognised it clearly. Last time she saw her father, she was only eleven. Lucy put an arm around her and kissed her on the temple.

“I’ll give you some privacy. I just want to last inform you we’ve arrested eleven people that we believe are responsible from all of this, is the totality of Robin Hood band, so you should all be safe now. Unfortunately, bad news is our investigation of the band indicates that Mr Strike was the head of it. And... this is him. I’ll pass by tomorrow to check on Mr Strike, have a good evening.” Anstis handed Leda a photo of Everett now on the morgue, already suited-up and decent for burial, and Leda and Lucy stared at it in awe and amazement. Lucy never thought she’d see sixty-seven-year-old Everett, and it was so shocking they didn’t speak for a moment.

“Thank you.” Leda said in a whisper, and Anstis left. They sat in silence for a few minutes, still looking at the picture.

“Are those things really Everett’s? Is it really him, Leda?” Joan asked approaching them and putting a hand on Leda’s shoulder to comfort her a little.

“I believe so,” Leda put the photo in her pocket and took the wallet from the bag. “This is his for sure... all leather, so old and it’s still in nice shape. Everett always took good care of his belongings,” she smiled fondly and opened the wallet. Inside there were three small and old pictures of Leda and Everett, young and smiley, thirteen-year-old Strike, already showing some stubble, and eleven-year-old Lucy, already looking too adult for her age. And then, to their surprise, as Leda looked further, she found equally small pictures of Lucy’s sons and Waverly. “Oh my God... no way...”

“How the hell?” Lucy stood up, unable to stay sitting, and Greg took one of her hands in his own. “He abandoned us?! All this time, thinking he was dead... and he was busy being a criminal?” she hissed.

“Love, we don’t know,” Leda said, much more put together. Years of marriage to a soldier, always having to stand stressful and anguishing situations, had made her a tough, put together woman. Robin stood up wrapped-up in her blanket and stood with Michael, Ilsa, and Ilsa’s parents, at a respectful distance from the family. “Luce, we don’t make hurried-up decisions about your father. I’m sure he had good reasons.”

“Well he’s not going to tell us now, isn’t he?” Lucy had snapped from sad to angry. “And Stick doesn’t remember, probably because he doesn’t want to either, because even I wish we didn’t know he was alive all this time being the head of a criminal band. I was happier two hours ago thinking he was a long-dead war hero.”

“Lucy,” Leda looked sternly at her. “Police will investigate further, and we’ll figure things out. We’ll get the answers we need, in time, but now your brother is our first priority. Your father’s activities have been a mystery for twenty years, they can remain as such for a few days more, don’t you think?” Lucy sighed and nodded. “Just try not to think about it so much now, love. Everything’s got a good reason behind that it’s unknown to us just for the moment.”

“Besides, didn’t Anstis say the band gave money from the rich to the poor? Alright, stealing isn’t right and stealing the royals, is treason, but... they weren’t like, killing anyone until now, that we know of,” commented Robin, cautious. “He couldn’t have been so bad. He swam to get Cormoran, otherwise he’d probably be dead too, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he got killed for saving him. That sounds more like a selfless hero to me, than a criminal.”

“Robin’s right,” Leda nodded. “You know your father; he would have good reasons.” She said to Lucy tenderly.

“Mum...” Lucy sighed. “I don’t know my father. He’s been dead for most of my life.” She murmured sadly. Leda simply hugged her.

 

 


	22. Uncovering the truth

Strike stirred as he felt himself wake up in a warm and comfortable cocoon, and he let out a huge yawn as he squeezed his eyes shut and got ready to go back to sleep. His mind felt asleep still, and he could only feel comfort and warmth. He felt a small smile make its way into his face as soft, warm skin, caressed his face, lips were pressed to his temple, and Robin’s flowered perfume filled his nostrils. His eyes slowly opened, the lids blinking at the bright light, and he looked straight into Robin’s blue-gray eyes and sweet smile. She had a hand on the pillow right by his face and her chin supported on the back of it, while her free hand cupped his face.

“Hi, handsome...” Robin said softly. “I missed you...” Strike cleared his throat and found his voice. Why did it feel so raspy?

“I love you too,” said Strike, surprising her.

“You saw me on TV?” Strike smiled, nodding. Robin chuckled and kissed him, pressing their lips together intensely. They separated abruptly as someone knocked on the door and Leda came in.

“Oh, look who’s up!” Leda grinned at Cormoran, oblivious to her son’s extracurricular activities, and sat on the verge of the bed to hug him.

“Hi, mum,” Strike chuckled hugging her as tightly as his tiredness allowed.

“How are you feeling, Mowie?” asked Leda affectionately kissing his cheek and stroking his short hair.

“I’m alright, just a little drowsy and tired, but all good,” said Strike, not wanting to worry his mother any further and smiling big despite the headache he was starting to get. “What happened? What did I miss?” he asked looking around, seeing a small hospital room, curtains drawn letting what seemed like morning sun inside.

“Well, we got your message and we were on the way to the address you gave us just after the fire alarm went off at Kensington Palace, when someone called 999 saying they had found you by a river, that you had almost drowned. They told Anstis and since the new address was near the one you gave, he decided to check it out, and there you were. That was yesterday in the wee hours, you slept all day,” Robin smiled warmly at him. They had decided if he really didn’t remember, then they’d wait until he was more recovered and stronger before telling him anything about Everett’s death.

“Oh,” Strike nodded, then smiled a little. “Lucky me then! I was worried you wouldn’t get the message.”

“I must say the ID thing helped incredibly, _Michael_ ,” Robin snorted a laugh and Strike grinned, happy to see them again.

“What’s the last you remember, Mowie?” Leda asked.

“Uh...” Strike shrugged. His throat felt dry but the idea of asking for water and having to feel it in his throat made him shudder. “Kensington Palace, the fire alarm... And that was the day before yesterday? Then I guess I forgot the part between that and ending up in a river. Must’ve felt like a bath.” He joked looking at Robin with a wink, wishing to lighten the mood. She rolled eyes and chuckled.

“You are a joke of a human being,” said Robin lovingly, kissing his cheek. “Do you want anything? Food? You haven’t eaten for a day. Or perhaps water?”

“Actually,” Strike nodded. “A juice and a good sandwich would be a dream come true.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” Robin smiled, gave him a peck on the lips, and left the room.

“So,” Leda squeezed his hand gently. “They arrested the gang that kidnapped you, but Anstis will want you to check them out to make sure they’re the right people. He gave us some photos to show you whenever you felt like it?”

“Sure, let me see,” said Strike. Then, seeing his mother’s hesitation, he insisted. “Mum, it’s fine. I feel fine, I can do it.”

“Alright...” Leda opened a drawer from the bedside table and pulled a plastic envelope that he handed to Strike. He pulled out eleven pictures A4 size, noticing right away his father wasn’t there. “Anstis said one escaped,” Leda lied, “but they will find him, they said it’s a matter of days.” Strike nodded, looking at all the other pictures and then nodded.

“Yep, these are the ones. I only see one missing, they were twelve, so the rest are all here.”

“Okay, let me text Anstis to let him know...” Leda pulled her phone and for a few minutes, focused on very slowly texting Anstis. Strike put the envelope back in the drawer and looked around at the beige walls, the flowers and ‘Get Well’ cards on the chest of drawers, and his watch and mobile on top of the nightstand. He hadn’t had them when he left his house and got kidnapped. According to his watch, it was nine and four minutes in the morning of Saturday, September 9th of 2017.

“Cousin Maggie’s birthday just passed a few days ago,” he commented casually.

“Yes, she’s in the city. Everyone is, they’ll be arriving shortly,” said Leda. She left her phone. Robin opened the door shaking a juice carton happily.

“Pineapple, because you’ve got the best girlfriend ever,” Robin beamed handing it to him. It was his favourite, and he hummed contently as he sucked from the straw. “Nurse said they’ll bring some breakfast shortly. Full English.” Strike’s eyes widened and he moaned with his lips around the straw.

“Bacon!” he said enthusiastically taking the straw out of his mouth, and the girls laughed. “You will appreciate bacon more when you have to live without it, trust me.”

“I’m vegan,” Leda reminded him with a playful chuckle.

“And I’m still impressed by that,” answered Strike, focusing back on his juice. He kept having to remind himself it was just juice, not water.

True to Leda’s word, the rest of Strike’s family and friends arrived to crowd Strike’s room while he was just finishing devouring his breakfast, and he was thankful a window was opened, because he suddenly felt a little claustrophobic and was glad he was eating, which made everyone not be so effusive with him. They fell into a comfortable ambient of conversation and catching-up, and Strike slowly assimilated all that had happened, sinking back on his pillows and angrily trying to figure out where had Everett gone, ran away. It was then that he realised he had someone to thank.

“Hey, mum, who rescued me from the river?” Strike asked suddenly.

“Sorry sweets?”

“The river. Someone called to say I was there, right? Who?” He observed with raised eyebrows as Lucy and Leda exchanged a serious look.

“I don’t know honey, what matters, is that you’re okay.”

“Of course it matters, I’d like to thank whoever saved my life,” said Strike, finding it weird that his family wouldn’t see it obvious. “Isn’t that the right thing? I should offer them a compensation of some kind.”

“It was one of the criminals Corm, someone who perhaps rebelled against the others. They got shot and killed for it, so you’ve got no one to thank,” said Lucy from the sofa where she was sitting with her eldest son on her knees.

“What?” Strike frowned. “But mum said everyone was arrested, I saw their pictures, they are alive. Except the missing guy, of course.” Leda chastised Lucy with her eyes and Lucy realised she had done a mistake; she didn’t know Strike had already seen the pictures. Strike caught the exchange. “Somebody please tell me what’s going on?”

“Nothing,” Lucy smiled. “I must’ve gotten confused. Anstis spoke to us so late, I was half-asleep and I misunderstood. I thought it was one of the gang members, who was it then, mum?” Strike frowned. Leda didn’t answer right away and Robin looked suspiciously intrigued.

“A passerby, I think. We could ask Anstis for a phone number so you can thank them,” Leda suggested smiling at Strike, who scowled.

“Do you guys think I still suck my thumb?” he asked, indignant.

“Excuse me?” Leda frowned.

“Mum, I have a three-year degree in Criminology at Oxford, nine years of experience as a Royal Military Policeman in the Special _Investigations_ Branch, and three years of experience as the bodyguard and chief of security of several celebrities and important personalities, I was even the Prime Minister’s Security Advisor for a while, do you really think you can lie to my face and I won’t notice? I may be tired, but you guys are such bad liars I can see your lies from Bangladesh. Now, please, someone tell me the truth?”

“Mowie, sweetie, truth is we don’t know much, you’re going to have to ask Anstis...”

“Bullshit. Lucy...” Strike narrowed his eyes at his sister, who sighed.

“Fine!” Lucy gave in. “You know who saved your life. It’s the missing member of the band, the twelfth,” Strike’s eyes widened and Lucy sighed. “You know who he is better than we do, Stick.” Strike nodded, slowly. It was his father. But was he... dead?”

“Is he dead?” Strike asked. He needed to know how much Lucy and Leda knew, because if they didn’t know about Everett then he could wait before ruining things for them. Lucy gulped and nodded slowly. Strike’s stomach sank.

“Police found him lying on top of you, he had been shot several times from behind. Anstis said it’s because he rescued you and the gang caught him. Today he confirmed the story after interrogating the rest of them,” said Lucy in a whisper. Robin sighed and looked cautiously at them.

“Then you know who the guy is, don’t you?” Strike asked. Lucy and Leda nodded. Strike sighed and looked down. What the hell had happened? Had Everett really come back for him? ‘I will come to your rescue’ ‘Daddy’s got your back’. The words resonated in his mind and he felt the strong urge to throw up, but he gulped it.

“Was it really dad?” Lucy asked in a whisper. “You saw him. You spoke to him. Was it really...?”

“Luce...” said Strike tenderly, looking at his sister with soft eyes. She looked sad. He realised it wasn’t fair that he had been the only one given the chance to see him and speak to him again. It was every orphan’s dream. “He looked like dad. His name was dad’s. His way of acting was dad’s. But... the things he spoke of and the ideas he had... those weren’t dad’s. Those were of someone I don’t recognise.”

“He was the chief of a criminal band,” said Lucy. “He tried to rob the Duke of Cambridge and Prince Harry.”

“To be fair, they only wanted to rob Prince Harry,” said Strike. “But uh... I don’t know what to tell you, Luce. I punched him myself when I knew who he was... but I can tell you he firmly believed there was so much good in what he was doing. He believed the good he was doing was greater than any he could’ve ever done in the Army, and he proved to care for us. He gave me plenty of examples of things he’s done for us in the shadows all these years, bringing good things for us and making sure we were okay. I’m not saying what he did was okay... I mean, it was probably treason... but he wasn’t a murderer. He never wanted for anyone to get hurt, things just... got out of hand. He lost control of the band. He tried to warn me and I didn’t listen. And no one really stole anything, no one even assaulted anyone, I just faked an ID, that’s not treason, so...”

“How long?” asked Lucy. She felt betrayed by their father. “How long has he been on it, did he tell you? He faked his death just for this, was it?”

“He uh...” Strike sighed and nodded. “Indeed.” Leda shook her head, looking down. There was a general silence. Except Robin, Greg, and the children, everyone there had known Everett, and they would’ve never said he was one to do something so terrible. Lucy got up and walked out of the room, Greg and his two oldest, the only ones there, following suit. Leda leaned back on the sofa and Ted squeezed her thigh affectionately. Strike’s cousins had a frown still present. Nick and Ilsa looked to be suffering indigestion.

 


	23. Like Titanic

Strike was sent home that day. He lied on the sofa looking absent-mindedly at the shadow of the fan, moving as the fan moved, on the ceiling. Robin was in the kitchen doing some work and Strike didn’t mind; his mind was very far away, on his father. He went over days of kidnapping, trying to clear his mind about his old man’s activities, trying to decide if he hated him or was just so hurt. Writing down a full statement for the police hadn’t helped his mind that much and Robin, who had tried to help him clear his mind, hadn’t achieved much either.

“Hi,” Strike looked down at the voice and saw Ilsa and Nick in front of him with Mackenzie, who was now a year old and walked on her own, stumbling and holding onto Nick’s trousers for dear life.

“Hey!” Strike smiled, getting up to hug them. Then, to their surprise, he squatted in front of Mackenzie and rubbed her wavy hair. “Hi you! You’ve gotten so big, walking and all, look at you!” Strike had decided that he was done being a negligent godfather. It was amongst his decisions post-kidnapping, he wanted to be more present for everyone and he thought that perhaps Mackie would be more healing for him than a torment, if he only let her. “Is she talking already?” he added looking at the parents.

“She says mum and dad, but that’s about it,” Nick half smiled. “Who are you and what have you done with our grumpy best friend?”

“Oh I just...” he shrugged, helping Mackenzie steady herself by holding her from the hips as she attempted to go explore and almost explored the taste of the wooden floor. “Come here Mackie, want to come with Uncle Corm?” he waited until Mackenzie smiled at him with her few teeth before scooping her up and sitting her on his knees as he and his friends sat on the sofa. “I owe you all an apology. You made me her godfather hoping I could be a good influence and caretaker and I’ve been negligent of her. I’m sorry and... I’ve decided it’s time to make an effort and try to do better. You’re my best friends, and I want to be as meaningful for your children as I know you were for Waverly.”

“Aw...” Ilsa hugged him.

“Don’t cry or I will take it back!” Strike threatened with a chuckle, hugging her back with one arm and holding Mackenzie with the other one.

“It means a lot,” Ilsa smiled at him. Nick chuckled.

“Can I offer you a drink or something?” asked Strike. “I think there’s alcohol too, I could ask Robin. I told her to lock the closet and hide the key just in case I go nuts.” He half smiled. Nick snorted a laugh and Ilsa rolled eyes.

“She’s making tea,” said Ilsa. Strike nodded, glad he wouldn’t have to come closer to water. He was fairly sure Robin had noticed the way he flinched when she had suggested Strike a shower upon their arrival home. He had instead washed on the bathtub with a damp sponge and using dry shampoo. “So how are you doing?”

“I’m... okay. Sleeping is difficult at times, but the good thing about living with a Doctor in Psychology is that you’re always well-taken-care-of.”

“Robin’s a doctor?” Nick looked impressed. “She keeps it quiet!” Strike nodded.

“My father told me and she confirmed it. I’ve got no idea how he knew though, she says she doesn’t like to brag about it,” said Strike.

“Talking about him, when’s the funeral?” Ilsa asked with sad eyes.

“You mean the second?” Strike snorted a dry laugh and shook his head. “The autopsy is just finishing up, so we’ll have to wait until then. Mum and I were thinking of just opening his grave, removing the empty casket, and burying him instead. Nothing big, a quick mass and burial. He already got a military funeral he didn’t deserve once.”

“So you’re still angry at him, right?” asked Nick raising his eyebrows at his resentful tone.

“I just can’t believe he did all of this. There are things I can try to excuse, but faking his death? Anstis reopened his death investigation and just a day in he has already found out he ran away from Afghanistan and left his comrades there while he came back under a fake identity. What honour is in that? If he at least had come to us... but he let us bury him and sink in our misery while he engaged in criminal activities. I don’t think any of us has figured out how to forgive him yet... if we ever do.”

“At least you know you want to forgive,” said Ilsa, her eyes looking at him with empathy. Strike nodded, using his knee to trot up and down as if it was Mackenzie’s horse. Then Robin arrived with a smile in her face and a tray of tea and biscuits. She had even bought some cake.

“Thank you honey,” Cormoran smiled at her. “Are you joining us or still busy with work?”

“How can I say no to that cute face?” Robin chuckled at Mackenzie, who was already trying to eat a biscuit. Robin sat beside Strike. “Do you fancy some tea or anything? There’s chocolate too.”

“Nah, I’m okay. This one may need more biscuits though,” he chuckled at Mackenzie helping her before she choked.

“Careful there babes, slow,” Nick instructed looking at Mackenzie which what Strike identified as ‘warning eyes’. “So how work, Robin? Did you start filming that new BBC series?”

“Actually, I’m currently unemployed,” said Robin, incapable of hiding her satisfaction. Strike almost choked in his biscuit, instead of Mackenzie.

“What? but what about your job?” he asked with teary eyes.

“That’s why I was so busy. I quitted. I’m holding a meeting tomorrow with my manager, my agent and everyone else to fire them nicely too.”

“What are you talking about?” Ilsa frowned. “You love your job!”

“I do love my job... but I don’t need it anymore. I’ve got enough saved-up, and I’m happy,” Robin shrugged and looked at Strike. “I don’t want a job that forces me to hire private security. I miss having a normal life and I don’t want your life on the line anymore.”

“Baby, but this is crazy!” Strike put a big, hairy hand on her knee. “Are you sure this is what you want? Because my life is cool, you don’t have to do this for me. This kidnapping had nothing to do with you.”

“I know, but it could have. Corm, someone’s tried to kill me twice this year, it’s just too much stress and anxiety. I want to sleep calm at night,” said Robin with sincerity. “Besides, I’m excited about conquering new horizons, trying something new, and I may still do theatre every now and then, I just want to be less famous and more normal. Just having a calm life with the man I love without danger.”

“Well, if this is really what you want... then you go, tiger. I’m proud of you, always,” Strike smiled leaning to kiss her and felt her smile against his lips.

“I was also thinking,” Robin added. “I know we’ve barely been here for a bit, but perhaps we could find us a new place to be together? Somewhere safe and nice, maybe closer downtown so we’re less isolated...” Strike nodded slowly.

“We’ll talk about it,” Strike promised with a nod.

“There are many houses available in our neighbourhood,” commented Nick, then looked at his wife, cradling his mug of tea between his hands. “Right, love?” Ilsa nodded.

“Yeah, they were making some new buildings, removing old ones. It’s nice, bringing a lot of new pretty views.”

“Awesome, we could check that out on Monday!” Robin chuckled. She liked their neighbourhood, it was all families, tranquil.

“I’d really prefer not thinking about that right now,” said Strike, and sighed, looking at Robin. “Baby, right now I’ve got a lot on my shoulders. I would prefer if we could push the moving to later in the year, or even next year. Don’t you feel safe here anymore, is that the rush?”

“Of course, I’m sorry,” Robin’s expression turned into a soft calmness, apologetic, looking at Strike. “To be honest, not so much... this whole thing just made me wonder how many people can figure so easily where we live. Dangerous people.”

“We need to relax about that, okay? The world is an unsafe place, we could be moving to a bunker and we would still be at some risk, but we’re prepared, we know how to fight. I would’ve gotten free myself, if I wasn’t scared something might happen to the family if I did.”

“You’re right,” Robin nodded. “And this house is really nice, there’s no rush. You’re right, there’s a lot going on right now.”

Mackenzie started looking a bit bored so Strike scooped her up and stood up.

“I think I’ve got something upstairs this one’s going to love, we’ll be right back!” said Strike already walking outside the room. He walked to the storage room and found a box that read ‘Waverly, Age 1’. “Look, this is full of stuff, you can take anything you want.” He smiled confident at Mackenzie, who looked greedily as he opened the box with one hand, showing her countless toys and books. Mackenzie picked a colourful book that made little noises and she giggled, entertained with it. “You like it?” Strike smiled wide. “My daughter loved it. You would’ve been good friends with her, she would be five now. Keep it, will you? Toys and books are to be passed along for more children to enjoy, not kept in a box forever.” They sat on the floor together with the book for a while until Strike was sure Mackenzie didn’t care about any other toy and took her back downstairs. She ran excitedly to show her parents the new book.

“Go show mummy and daddy what Uncle Corm gifted you uh?” Strike chuckled at the child and went back to his seat.

“Oh, you got a new book honey? She loves books, is unbelievable...” Ilsa smiled at her. Then she recognised it and shook her head. “Corm, please, this is Waves’, you don’t have to...”

“I want to,” Strike nodded. Robin looked impressed at him, smiling touched at his apparent improvement. “Ilsa, it’s been three years, I can’t store her life away forever as if she was coming back, and toys are to be used. She was too old for these already anyway, she would’ve given all her things to Mackenzie as she stopped using them, I know she would’ve, and Mackenzie will make much better use of them than a carton box. She’s more than welcomed to grab anything she likes when she comes, and the stuff that she’s already too big for, I will give it to a kindergarten or something. Toys are for children to keep using until they’re too broken to function.”

“Big step, isn’t it?” Nick commented surprised. Ilsa nodded.

“Yeah, maybe you should wait until you’re really sure...”

“I am sure,” Strike shrugged. “Seriously, it’s liberating even. Nothing would make me happier than have things that made my kid happy make your kid happy too, have some fun. And they were expensive, Charlotte was a bloody spendthrift.”

“Well if you ever want them back, you take them,” said Ilsa just to be sure. Mackenzie was already sitting on the rug with her new book, making it do the little noises and giggling with it. Ilsa smiled at her.

“Look at that, see? Everyone happy!” Strike snorted a laugh. “Besides, I started getting rid of things over a year ago already, mostly clothing. My flat was too tiny to store so much. So it’s not like I came back from the death like a whole new person.”

“At least you’re better than Lucy. I called Greg this morning, he said she was locking things up inside,” Robin commented with a concerned expression. Strike frowned and shook his head.

“I knew it, that’s why I didn’t say anything about him from the start. We can’t sink twice, we simply can’t.”

“Was he really so convinced he was doing the right thing?” Ilsa asked with a frown.

“He was even indignant I thought he was an utter jerk,” said Strike. “Believe me, I said shit to him to fill the entire family’s quota. I was as harsh as one could be, as I still think I wasn’t harsh enough. He could’ve gotten all of us killed and he didn’t give a shit because he was narcissistic and kept saying that he wouldn’t let us get hurt while simultaneously admitting he was losing control over the band. If the boys had gotten hurt, I would’ve had to personally kill him, if Lucy didn’t arrive sooner.”

“Okay but at least he saved you, that has to count somewhere right?” Robin argued, not wanting for him to be eating himself up with rage in the inside.

“Saved me? He’s the reason I was put in this situation, instead of standing up for me and avoiding me to be sunk in the river in the very beginning, he stood there doing nothing and...” in his anger, he hadn’t realised it had slipped.

 

 

 


	24. I do remember

“Wait,” Robin frowned. “How do you know what he did? Have you started remembering?” Strike’s face of surprise said it all, but he quickly tried to shrug it off.

“No, Anstis told me.”

“Anstis doesn’t know, he said the people from the gang refused to talk before trial and there’s no other way he would’ve known,” Ilsa frowned. “He said it in front of everyone, remember?” Strike cursed himself. He had forgotten that little detail. “I’m a lawyer, you’re not fooling me. You do remember, but that’s great for your head! Why didn’t you say so?”

Strike understood there was no point on trying to pretend anymore, so he sighed, accepting his defeat, and leaned back against the cushions.

“Please, don’t tell anyone,” pleaded Strike with a defeated expression. “I do remember everything, I just thought my mother would sleep better at night thinking I had been blessed with not remembering traumatic stuff. Besides, I don’t want all the questioning, I already wrote a full statement and gave it to Anstis earlier, he knows I remember.”

Robin left her tea on the coffee table and sat facing Strike with her whole body and a concerned frown. She squeezed his hand.

“Corm, you don’t have to worry about anyone but yourself sweetie, they can deal with things,” said Robin softly.

“Really? Because Lucy right now is proving otherwise,” said Strike, crestfallen thinking of how much his little sister must be hurting. “She doesn’t need to know what truly happened that night or that I know it. She doesn’t need to know the extent of what her father did. She wouldn’t forgive him and it would only hurt her inside. Same with mum. Trust me, I already saw them sink once, they don’t need this, if I could, I would’ve made sure he was always a war hero to them.”

“Corm, precisely because of that you know they can take it. So yes, they’ll be down for a while, but then they’ll rise up like always. If what your father did is so terrible, being sad for a while would only be the normal reaction, or being angry, but then they’ll eventually rise-up,” said Robin, confident. “Besides, you can’t lie to them forever. It could come-up in the trial, it will most likely.”

“I know,” Strike shrugged. “I’m just hoping to delay it so they can take one thing at a time. Knowing what they know about him right now is a lot already, so step by step right? I’ll tell them the rest when they’re better.”

“Oggy mate...” Nick frowned, pale. “Everett wouldn’t...” he gulped. “He didn’t... he didn’t try to kill you did he?” Strike didn’t immediately answer, so Ilsa gasped and covered her mouth with her hands.

“It wasn’t exactly... I mean...” Strike gulped and sighed, shaking his head. He was going to have to tell them eventually, anyway, and in the moment it didn’t look like he had any other escape. “After the palace thing, I tried to convince them someone had smoked and activated the alarm by accident, tried to make it look as if I had found out interesting things so we could try again in a few weeks. But they knew. Apparently, one of them saw me give away a note with my ID, they had been waiting for the right moment to kick my arse. They fought with my father, who tried to defend me, but then they pointed at him with a gun and my father saw that they had reached the limit and gotten out of control and he could no longer hold any power over them. They forced us into a car and took us to the river, to a bridge over it.” Strike stopped himself as memories came flowing back. He had to pause and he was glad no one pressured him to continue, and he wasn’t able to do so until a while later. “Anyway... my father stood there and did nothing while I tried to negotiate another way of fixing things. I begged on my knees because I was scared shitless, okay? I lost all my dignity at once, but truth is, little times has something scared me so much, and the idea of being told, get in your coffin alive and we’ll throw you to a river is quite... well...” he took a deep breath. “I guess being forced to do it yourself is the worst, because your body responds as if you were betraying it, and it tries to stop yourself. I couldn’t even move,” he murmured, looking down. He was no longer thinking of who was listening, he was just sunk in his memories. “Everett stood there sobbing and did nothing. Not a word. Nothing. Until eventually someone forced him to use chloroform on me and it’s not like in the movies, that takes a moment. I was there, in the freezing cold night, for over five minutes, handcuffed while my own father drugged me and I sobbed. And by the way, just with that he could’ve killed me, because I’m fairly confident he almost asphyxiated me just with his hand. All he did then was whisper in my ear that he’ll come for me, but the fact that he did doesn’t make this any right. He put me in that situation. And he did it even if countless times over the previous days I begged him to leave with me, to do something, to stop this madness, and warned him he’d get us all killed. It was all his fault.” Strike stood up taking a deep breath and passing a hand over his face to calm himself down. He had reached the bookshelf absentmindedly and, next to a picture of the Ellacott siblings very young with their parents, was a picture of Strike’s parents with himself and baby Lucy, and for a second he had the urge of throwing it through the window.

When Strike finally turned around, he was met with three faces of a mixture of anger, disbelief, disgust and ‘how could he’. However, only Nick and Ilsa seemed to muster the level of repulsion only good parents could feel towards the idea that someone could even raise a hand towards their own offspring, and Nick had already taken Mackenzie onto his lap, putting a pair of protective arms around her as he seemed to be fighting off nausea.

“You know what? I uh...” Ilsa shook her head with her face full of disgust. “I don’t have words to describe how much that dude repulses me right now. He doesn’t deserve his two wonderful children and I hope he roots in hell, ‘cause that’s what he deserves.” The words were the closer she could do to spat, really. Robin let a long breath out, her tea abandoned on the coffee table. Nick nodded slowly.

“Right now I can’t muster any empathy towards him either, to be honest,” commented Robin, scowling. “Tomorrow I may come up with some psychological stuff and make this horror something even comprehensible, but right now...” she shook her head. “I expected much more of a man I’ve heard so many good things of.”

“You should’ve heard him trying to justify himself,” said Strike angrily. “Maybe what he did to me was the icing on top of the cake, but when I resented him for leaving us, he intended to put himself as some sort of God, saying that he always looked after us, that he was always looking after us because he punched some arsehole my mum once dated so he wouldn’t come near her again, and he sat next to my bed when I was in rehab, or went to our weddings, sent flowers to graves and sick relatives, manipulated stuff so Lucy won the lottery once or donated anonymously to her crowfunding so she could go to university, he even tried to make himself look like some hero saying he was the one to call 999 when the car thing and was there to rescue us if he saw it was necessary, and saying he also convinced the BBC people to reconsider Robin, handing them her curriculum. He was full of narcissism and hero complex, as if a monster capable of seeing their children suffering to the point of suicidal attempts at thirteen because you left and doing nothing could ever be justified as oh, sorry, I was busy being a hero. He truly thought stealing from people judging that they didn’t deserve their money to give it to poor people was worth it all, bigger than all else, the most important thing, something he should be acclaimed and worshiped for. That it made him a hero and we shouldn’t look at the bad side of everything.”

Robin had gotten up and walked to him, sensing his radiating anger and frustration, holding one of his hands with one of hers and caressing his face with her free hand, moving to kiss his forehead.

“It’s over,” she said softly, looking at him in the eyes. “He truly is dead now, Corm. Your father is dead and he is dead because he made a huge amount of incredible mistakes and when he realised what he did was wrong it was too late and he paid the ultimate prize. He will never come back again and now there’s no doubt, no glimpse of hope of seeing him again or hugging him once more. And the truth is, in the end he knew what he did was terrible, in the end he proved his family came first and foremost and he saved your life. You’ve got all the right to be furious at him but eventually you need to forgive him sweetie, because otherwise it’s going to eat you up inside-out, and you need to remember we all make mistakes but certain people deserve our outmost efforts to forgive them because they didn’t mean to do something so wrong. You need to remember he meant the right thing, he just lost his mind somewhere along the way, I don’t know, he was in war, people go crazy there sometimes right? Perhaps he just lost faith in what he was doing or the government or whatever and tried to correct things and make the world a bit fairer and just ended up hurting the people he cared for the most. Remember he was shot six times while most likely doing CPR on you, and you didn’t got a single bit of bullet, which means he probably got shot once so he’d stop, then he didn’t, and then he was shot all the other times until he stopped being able to help you, because if he had been lying on you when he got shot, the short distance would’ve meant you would’ve gotten shot too. A monster doesn’t give his life for his family nor risks his freedom for poor people expecting nothing in return. He didn’t even live in a manor, he was just trying to play Robin Hood.”

Strike brought her into his arms and breathed heavily against the crook of her neck. He knew Robin was right, but as she had previously expressed, right then it wasn’t empathy and compassion what first came into his chest.

 

 


	25. I'm snugglish!

After dinner, Strike and Robin got into their pyjamas, both feeling too emotionally exhausted to sit on the sofa and watch a movie like they’d usually do before Strike had been kidnapped. He entered the en suite bathroom of their bedroom and as he grabbed his toothbrush, he saw through the mirror that the bathroom door was closed behind him. He usually closed it, but this time it gave him a strange sense of discomfort, like anxiety starting to creep in his gut, so he decided to leave the door just a little bit open. Then he looked at the door again, frowning. The feeling hadn’t vanished, so he opened the door wide, looking into the bedroom. That felt a little better, but not quite right yet. Robin looked at him questioningly over the book she was reading in bed.

“Everything alright, darling?” Robin asked him.

“Yeah...” Strike frowned lightly. “It’s just... would you mind opening the window wide?” he asked, pointing at the window next to the bed. Robin frowned.

“But babes, it’s cold outside.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll snuggle you properly,” Strike smirked a little. Robin rolled eyes, but smiled, nodding and going to open it. The air coming fresh instantly made Strike feel at ease again, but he didn’t close the bathroom door and he went to open the faucet to brush his teeth, but the moment a drop of water started coming out, Strike suddenly felt agitated and had to close it immediately. “What the...?” he murmured to himself, sighing in frustration. ‘What is wrong with me? it’s just water, man up’ Strike shook his head, pouring a bit of toothpaste into his toothbrush and, after taking a deep breath to collect himself, he opened the faucet again and tried to calmly put the toothbrush underneath. However, his calm resolve lasted about two seconds and barely a moment after the water has touched the brush, he was closing the faucet and shoving the brush into his mouth angrily.

Strike scowled at himself in the mirror as he felt his heart thumping quickly inside his chest and then calm down slowly. He finished brushing his teeth, a process that took him longer than usual as he glared at the faucet and tried to delay seeing water again. Letting the brush fall on the sink, Strike eyed the bottle of mouthwash standing on a shelf by the mirror and he smiled to himself, spit in the sink until his mouth was as empty of foam as possible, and took one brief swing of mouthwash. He still had to open the faucet to wash his brush, quickly, but at least it didn’t have to go into his mouth.

“There you are,” Robin smiled as he finally entered the room again. The room was, indeed, quite cold now, and Robin had the duvet up to her neck, no longer reading. Strike tried to pretend the cold air didn’t cause chills in his southern skin. “You took your time...”

“Ah, yeah, I thought I had a caries,” ‘white lie’ Strike told himself, looking at the bedroom door. “D’you mind if I leave that open too?” Robin looked surprised.

“Alright...” she conceded. Strike opened the door and he felt himself grow relaxed the more he opened it. For one moment he felt like throwing the wall down. He put another blanket over the duvet and then snuggled with Robin, wrapping her in his arms. She smiled and hummed as her face pressed against his chest, and Strike chuckled kissing her forehead.

“Goodnight, love.” He said, turning the lamp off.

“Sweet dreams by sweet giant...”

However, the sweet dreams were interrupted by shit dreams only a few hours later. Robin woke up to the sense that the family dog, Rowntree, was in their bedroom having a nightmare, but the sounds actually came from Strike. She frowned looking at him. In their three months of relationship, give or take, of course they had gone to sleep and one of them woken to the other’s nightmares. Usually it was the other way around, but Robin had woken up before too. What she had never heard was this kind of noise. She was used to noises that were more like panting and murmuring, even a slight growl, but this was a mixture between a hurt puppy and breathing so heavy she worried for a second that he would asphyxiate. When the worry of having Strike asphyxiate in bed overwhelmed her, Robin resolved to shake him awake, and he jumped awake coughing and gasping as if he truly had been close to asphyxiating, a hand over his chest and his eyes teary and wide.

“Hey, hey...” Robin knelt and rubbed his back up and down, kissing his shoulder tenderly. Strike coughed for a while more, until he finally calmed down, taking deep breaths. Robin soothed him verbally the entire time. “What was that?”

“Water... everywhere...” said Strike, flopping back into the bed with a thud and covering his face with one hairy arm as he breathed to calm himself down. Inside it felt like a boiling panic attack, building up slowly but steadily. “I couldn’t breathe.” He finally said, removing the arm from his face and looking at Robin. “I’ve been getting anxious seeing water too. What’s going on? Am I losing my mind?” he asked, looking at Robin with concern. She sighed and shook her head, tucking them both in and both rolling to face each other, Robin’s hand over his between them.

“I think you’ve got PTSD,” said Robin softly. “Nightmares with something traumatic are part of it. And PTSD can provoke the aquaphobia, which is phobia to the mere idea of water, doesn’t matter the amount of it. I also think you’ve got a great deal of claustrophobia, because I haven’t seen you in a closed room since you came back. You’ve always been asking to leave doors and even windows open, even when it’s cold like tonight. Even in the car when we brought you home, you asked us all to open up the windows.”

“Shit... you’re right...” Strike puffed air. At times he was particularly glad Robin was a psychologist, which was ironic since he had always hated them. “What am I going to do?”

“Well...” Robin looked cautiously at him. “You should try psychotherapy. It will help with your feelings about Everett too.” Strike nodded silently.

“We’ll see,” Robin was satisfied he didn’t immediately say no and squeezed his hand softly.

“Try to go back to sleep?”

“What if I asphyxiate to death?” asked Strike with genuine worry in his eyes. Robin frowned lightly and caressed his face.

“Dreams cannot kill, Cormoran. If you don’t want to have a dream anymore, just shout ‘I don’t want to be here anymore’. Shout until you’re out.” Strike narrowed his eyes lightly.

“That easy?”

“Only if you want it to be.”

He was, however, aroused from his sleep early by Robin, who didn’t seem to like him sleeping too long just in case. Her trick had somewhat worked, although only to change his dreams minimally, but it was good enough. Strike woke up feeling somewhat more rested and accepted a plate of eggs for breakfast that Martha, their friend slash servant, made. It was later, as he and Robin were enjoying a romantic walk around the neighbourhood holding hands and talking about irrelevant matters, that Strike’s phone rang.

“Hello Detective,” said Strike into his phone, his left hand reminding intertwined with Robin’s. “Now? Alright, I’ll grab a cab and be right there. Thank you, goodbye,” he hung up and looked at Robin raising an eyebrow. “Anstis wants to see me. I think it’s time to identify those bastards.”

“I’ll go with you,” resolved Robin with a small smile. Strike nodded and they looked around. “It’s far to go back home now, we’ll just grab a cab right around the corner.”

Once in a cab, the drive to The City wasn’t too long, and the raindrops on the window were the only reason for Strike to be particularly tense. Robin managed it tenderly by holding one of his bi hands between her smaller, softer ones, and rubbing circles into the back of it, distracting Strike with football talk encouraged by the cabbie.

The New Scotland Yard building was a white tower standing by the Thames in Westminster, guarded by Met policemen that nodded politely at Strike as he and Robin entered the building holding hands and advanced into a lift. They were met by Anstis in his office.

“Hello Mr. Strike, is nice to see you looking so healthy,” Anstis smiled shaking his hand and then Robin’s. “Ms. Ellacott, how are you?”

“All good, thank you.” Robin smiled politely.

“You’ve done an excellent job, I must say,” Strike commented as they walked to another room. “I appreciate it, Detective.”

“We were lucky you managed to contact us though. We might’ve been there too late otherwise but we learn from our mistakes,” said Anstis modestly. “So, first, I’m going to have to ask you to do a final check of these people, confirm they are the ones you stated in your statement.”

“Sure,” They faced a glass and blinds were lifted to let them see several men and women aligned, looking serious. Strike knew the drill; he could see them, but they could not see him.

“All of them have a record. Ex-Military and Ex-Police, all quit and started devoting into minor criminal activities such as robbery. The guy who took over the band after your father is the only one who has ever been arrested for a serious offence. He was the main suspect of his ten-year-old daughter, six years ago. He was declared innocent, but the murderer was never found and the detective in charge still thinks it was him,” Anstis explained. “Him and the minority that supports him and has his back have refused to speak but everyone else has confessed and told us they didn’t know what the others had done, they were there when you were thrown in the river but claim they went home afterwards and at some point, noticed the others and Everett had disappeared. They didn’t know they had gone to kill Everett, or that Everett was trying to save you. They said they never meant for anyone to die or get hurt, that all they wanted was to re-balance economy and make justice, give the poor enough to live from people who didn’t need it or deserved it, in their opinion. They lived almost in poverty themselves, so we can tell they never got enriched from it. They didn’t owe guns either, not like the others who took over after Everett, and they don’t have a criminal record aside from the robbery they did with the band. So the public prosecutor is only prosecuting them for burglary and kidnapping, and the rest for burglary, kidnapping, murder and attempted murder.”

“Seems right by me,” said Strike, looking at the people in the meantime. “It’s what they deserve.”

“Don’t you want the ‘good ones’,” Anstis drew inverted commas in the air. “To go down for contributing to...?”

“No,” Strike sighed. “They were scared. I don’t forgive them, but I know a child when I see one and just more years in prison won’t help me at all. I don’t believe they can be put in the same sack as the others.”

“So...” Anstis pointed at the glass with his head. “Are they all?”

“Yes.”

“Sure?”

“Completely,” Strike nodded. He had expected to feel negatively about seeing them again, but he felt more like a wolf looking at its preys.

“Alright,” Anstis nodded too. “Then, I’d like to talk to you about your father, if that’s alright? I’ve completed the investigation on him and the forensic has also finished, so we’ve got a full report.”

Strike nodded and he and Robin followed Anstis back into his small office, sitting across from him at his desk on two comfortable chairs. Robin, supporting Strike as always, kept a hand on his knee as he took a look at the numerous papers Anstis presented him with.

“On June 15th, 1997, Mr Strike was fighting in Afghanistan. His team was victim of an Improvised Explosive Device and they all died, or so we thought. Barely nothing was found of Mr. Strike and a fellow, Francis McArthon. The trace is lost until 2005, when we finally get photographs from a Robin Hood robbery that now, looked up close, you can see a blurry version of Mr Strike, now that we know how he looked,” explained Anstis as he pointed at information in the various documents presented in front of them. “The rest, you know it. His band is responsible of the loss of about three billion pounds over the years, of which almost everything was, we suspect, donated anonymously to organisations for orphans, disabled people, investigation of illnesses, hospices, and the poor. We registered the house that served as headquarters and it was the most humble thing, it can barely be called a house, so we know they didn’t profit from what they stole. Everett’s autopsy has concluded there was straining in his wrists from, most likely, performing CPR for long amounts of time, and that he was shot a total of 9 times. First on the arm, then the shoulder... until a fatal shot in the head finished him. We believe he was shot from about ten meters behind him and that he didn’t collapse on you until the last shot. The water in his lungs indicates he was also the person who rescued you, we’ve found a trunk in the depths of the river, it had chains and stuff, but he took you out.”

Strike nodded, his eyes fixed on the picture of his father presented on one of the documents, and gulped. He, now more than ever, would’ve wanted to talk things out with him.

 

 

 


	26. And so I forgive

During the next couple days, Strike didn’t have time to concentrate much on his own issues, such as his aquaphobia and claustrophobia. They were there, and Robin took great notice of them, but he just tried to avoid the issue or shrugging it off, and they tried to maintain open doors at the house and keep Strike away from water. With his sister immerse in struggle and the care of three children, Strike and his mum were in charge of the funeral arrangements, that led to very hectic days, as they had to first open an existing, empty coffin.

Everett Strike’s representative empty coffin had been buried at first twenty years previously, at Truro Cemetery in Cornwall. Years later, Strike had been in charge of the arrangements of his wife and daughter’s burials and, against the Campbells’ wishes, he had buried them both next to his father in Cornwall, so the three could be together and so the family that really mattered could be close. Back then Strike had been close to moving back to Cornwall, so it only made sense. Charlotte and he had been the happiest at the Cornish beaches, and Cornwall had given what Waverly affectionately had called ‘the best holidays’, so he felt they would’ve liked the place, and the cemetery was pretty.

Now, however, it meant they all had to travel to Cornwall, and send notice to their friends and family quickly enough so everyone had time to ask free days at work and come. It also meant twice the trouble, having to travel in advance for the arrangements, and in the middle of it all, Strike tried to figure it out his own feelings and mental struggle, appreciating more than ever the snuggles with Robin at the end of the day.

Everett had been a devoted non-religious his whole life. His family was Anglican, and he had been, until the military made him change into not giving a shit about any God, so he hadn’t been buried religiously the first time and Strike and Leda felt it wouldn’t be his wish to be buried religiously the second time, the time of the actual burial, so they contented with a bit of a ceremony in a small room where some people could say some nice words in his honour, do some readings, and bid him farewell in their own way. Strike, who didn’t get the chance to collaborate in the first funeral, felt he particularly should do his part this time, and asked his sister to do the same. But Lucy couldn’t. She was still processing things and although more sad than angry by then, she was more the kind of person to think whatever she needed to tell Everett, it was better off privately. She also confessed to Strike for the moment the only things she felt like telling him were not suitable for underage, and her children were coming.

So there was Strike, sitting at the beach, trying not to feel angry and to come up with something nice to say, his pen and notebook at hand and his feet buried in the cold sand. He thought himself alone and took a minute to notice Leda sitting next to him, smiling softly at him.

“Haven’t written a word yet, uh?” said Leda, her hair gray and white and loose, wild and wavy, and a soft hand stroking the back of his head. “You’ve been here for hours. Robin, Ilsa and I were just having a drink.” Strike looked around and waved, seeing outside the beach, up on the street, the girls were gathered around a small table at Ilsa’s parents’ pub. “Why is it so hard to write? You were always the best at that.” She smiled kindly.

“I don’t know, mum...” Strike sighed, shaking his head, then snorted a laugh. “I’ve got Lucy’s syndrome, I just want to be like ‘why would you be such a brainless arsehole and put my life on the line, you selfish...’ but I can’t. There’s so much I don’t understand nor know, so much doubt and frustration, and it only leads to anger.”

“You know, your sister is only struggling so much because she’s determined to forgive him and love him, but she’s a mother. She’s trying to understand how could a parent do those things and to her, what he’s done becomes unforgivable. But she’ll keep making an effort because she loves him and knows he loved her, in his own weird way. She just needs to hate him a little first.” Strike nodded slowly.

“Have you written yours already?”

“Yeah, took me half an hour,” said Leda, looking into the ocean.

“How?” Leda smiled at him gently.

“Darling, your father was the love of my life. I’ve tried, but I’ve never met someone who was that incredible... and it’s so easy to write something when it is for the love of your life,” said Leda. “I forgive him for everything he’s done. I’m not angry. I knew him well and I know he never meant to put us through so much pain... that he must’ve been struggling with things perhaps you could understand better than us, and that if he could’ve gone back and done things different, he would’ve. I can’t talk about what I don’t know, but I know family must always love and forgive each other without judging, or at least try their best to do so, and I’m not free of sin to cast the first stone. So I wrote about the things I do know for certain. That he loved us so much, that he was a wonderful husband and father, who always tried his best, and who sacrificed his last twenty years of life to be someone who could help those who had nothing at all.”

“I wish it was so easy for me too...” murmured Strike looking down.

“Oh, but it is, sweetly, for you it’s easier even,” said Leda with ease. “Think of those things you’ve forgiven Charlotte because she couldn’t be here to defend herself and you didn’t want to judge the dead, or how when you became an addict we could’ve resented you, we all suffered a lot, but we understood you didn’t mean to hurt us, you were just struggling. And you too worked a job that could’ve been dangerous for your daughter, if someone had come for revenge, but you did it because you thought it was worth the risk and you thought she’d understand you were trying to make this world a better place. You of all should understand your father better.” Strike sighed.

“What I did wasn’t illegal, mum...”

“Oh, laws!” Leda snorted. “Politicians steal all the time, so do business people, and just to be richer. Your father did it to help others, how can that be such a bad thing?”

“Dad was violent,” said Strike with a light frown, trying not to reveal more than he should. “He was aggressive with me. And I’m his son.” Leda smiled a little.

“Baby, we’re all a little violent with our children sometimes. When I was little, it was normal to get spanked in the arse for doing the wrong thing, and your father and you are adults, both ex-soldiers, keen to cross the line a little... But even if he truly hurt you, dear,” Leda caressed his face softly. “Do you think he did it because he truly wanted to?” Strike thought about it for a moment, and then shook his head. “Then perhaps he didn’t have a choice. What matters is that regardless of his mistakes, he came back and he died to save you.”

Before the ceremony, every member of the immediate family was allowed a few minutes alone with the dead at the funeral parlour. First entered Lucy, then Leda and finally, Strike straightened his dark suit as he closed the door behind himself, took a deep breath, and turned around, looking at the opened casket on the floor. Everett was in his best suit, and his gun wounds were impossible to see as they were in the back. Strike fell on his knees next to him with a hand on his father’s chest and tears in his eyes, and he thought about what Leda had said. Suddenly everything seemed crystal clear, and his lip quivered.

“Thank you for everything, dad,” he murmured hoarsely, and then leaned and, cautiously, pressed his lips against his bearded cheek, surprisingly cold and tough under his lips. “I love you. This is what you should’ve gotten from me that day... I’m sorry I let my anger win over my desire to see you again. And I forgive you, because I know you didn’t mean any of this to happen. You just wanted to help everyone and couldn’t take a no for an answer.”

After several minutes, Strike braved up and closed the casket. He bid his father goodbye and went outside to the large room where everyone else waited, and hugged Robin, beautiful in her black dress. She looked sad and squeezed him tightly. When the time for the ceremony came, over half an hour later, Strike paid attention to how many people had they come, filling the room until there was people standing up. Robin’s family came, their friends, friends’ families, old neighbours, people from London, ex-soldiers... everyone. None of them were stopped by the title that headlines that had titled the newspapers those days, such as ‘Ex-Soldier becomes the head of a criminal band’.

Several people came to give speeches, or read letters to Everett, or things they had found in books, the Bible or online that seemed important for the occasion. Everything was beautiful and Leda’s speech moved them to tears. Since Strike wasn’t sure what to say, he let his turn be the last, and when it came, he accepted a quick peck on the lips from Robin and he stood at the podium. He cleared his throat nervously, and looked down at his nephews, looking serious in their seats, sad and confused.

“Hello everyone, thank you all for coming. It’s touching to see my father meant so much to so many people after all,” said Strike first, looking around. He took a pause and looked briefly at his sister, breathing heavily into her husband’s chest. “To be honest, I haven’t been able to prepare anything to say. I didn’t know what to say and I’m afraid I’m still figuring out, so you’re going to have to forgive me if I walk around the bushes or am not very eloquent. Truth is, going twice to the funeral of your same father isn’t very common, isn’t it?” he smiled darkly. “But I’ve been a lucky man. When we had my father’s first funeral, I was thirteen, and I remember there were widows from my father’s military friends, with their children, some younger than me, and they had never had a body to bury or to say goodbye to. We, today, have it. And everyone here who lost someone in their life has wished for one more chance to talk with them, to hug them, to say ‘I love you’, and I had it. That dream came true for me and I wasted it because the circumstances made me too angry to say ‘I love you’ or even hug him. Now I wish I had,” said Strike softly. He rubbed his eyes quickly and took a deep breath. “Far too often we let the dark show the worst of us to people that have forgiven us so much and have always tried the best they knew to give us all the best. I won’t let that happen today too. I won’t give him my back twice.”

» “I know what the newspapers are saying about my father. I said those things too. The words ‘criminal’ or ‘traitor’ come to mind, but truth is, here in the family, we know each other well, and I know my father was many things, but he wasn’t a criminal. And he wasn’t a traitor. And he deserves to know the truth, just like I, now, do.” Said Strike.

» “My father was Sergeant Everett James Strike, of the Royal Military Police’s Special Investigations Branch. He devoted to investigating military crimes and he sometimes participated in wars. He devoted twenty-five years of his life to this, and in all those years, he became a wonderful husband, as my mother has remarked, and a father of two. He was the man who taught me how to ride a bicycle, to be a big brother, to protect family, to drive at only ten-years-old,” he smiled for himself, sadly. “I remember we had to see him go very often, and some would say we should be used to that, but truth is what we really became accustomed to was to see him come back. Every time he came back, we’d pick him up all tinned-up in my Uncle and Aunt’s Morris Minor and he always had gifts for everyone. He put my sister on one shoulder and me in the other, and he’d play with us for days and days and days... he was that person. He paid attention to us. School drives, bed-time stories, baths... making the most of the little time we had together. I don’t know how he had the energy, but every off day he got, he’d come running to fetch us three, make us miss work or school so we could go on an adventure and do something fun, and he showed us so much. We travelled so often, all cramped in our little car doing camping and bathing nude in the beach because why not?” Strike sighed and shrugged. “He taught me how to be a father myself. And he wasn’t perfect, neither am I, but he was damn close.” Strike took a deep breath looking at the closed casket in front of him and cleared his throat. His voice was raspy anyway.

» “My father was always effortlessly damn good with his children. He would encourage my sister to do things usually considered boys stuff, to get dirty and fight. He would encourage me to be less of a brute and cook or help at home. And I won’t forget one time, after I caught him sad after some deployment, he told me to never let someone convince me who the enemy is. That I should always judge with my own heart and remember that for every bullet I shoot, one mother or one father won’t come home to their kids. He didn’t know I’d wind-up becoming a soldier too and making full use of that advice.”

Strike looked around with another deep breath and was surprised to see attentive eyes on him, instead of bored. Even Lucy looked attentively at him.

» “That’s why today I won’t condemn or judge him, just like I don’t do it with my late wife, who wasn’t perfect either. I know my father fucked-up badly. I fucked-up badly. If someone wants to throw a stone at him, then I encourage them to start by me. Is he a criminal? Then so am I. Because I was involved in drug-dealing and spent a bunch of money that was my family’s and not mine on drugs and yet my sister didn’t kill me when I received a scholarship to Oxford and she didn’t and she had to do so much effort to get the money to go somewhere good because we had none and I was partially responsible. I did drugs, hell, several months ago I bought heroine and I got fucking high and that’s the truth. I relapsed, I fucked up again. I wasted money on alcohol and whores. I did things I shouldn’t have. And you know what? my name wasn’t in the newspapers, but my family did, and they showered me with love and forgiveness and have nothing but encouragement for me. I wish I had had that for my father when he was alive to receive it.” Strike admitted with tears in his eyes.

» “Besides... did he really do so much wrong, really? He never enriched at the expense of someone else. He only wanted to give to the poor and make this world a little better, and he sacrificed twenty years of his life to do that, hoping we’d forgive him because he was just trying to be good. Because he no longer felt comfortable taking lives or pursuing criminals and seeing the worst in the world. I arrested bad soldiers. I won’t compare my father to them. It wouldn’t be fair.” Suddenly all things made sense in Strike’s mind.

» “At the end, my father did what was expected of him. He made this world a little better. And he’s going to be thoroughly missed, even more now that we know he’s definitely never coming back. He spent twenty years far from the people he missed and loved the most, trying to make this world a bit better. He spent twenty years with eyes on us from the distance, bringing us so much good and guarding us, unbeknownst to us, so our lives weren’t bad at all. He told me, and I believe him. I know he was even there to guard my daughter when I wasn’t looking, and I’m conscious she probably spoke with him a ton of times without me knowing. When he was found, my father had pictures of all of us and his grandchildren in his wallet. That, better than anything else, says who he was. Perhaps he went nuts... I don’t know. But I do know I’m damn proud of being his son.”

» “So I forgive him, I love him, and I will miss him with all of my heart. And I hope wherever he is, he can forgive me too. I know he already did,” Strike let a tear fall down his cheek and he didn’t care. “If someone else still has a shade of a doubt about this man I will add that yes... It’s his fault certain terrible things happened. Yes, he helped the wrong team. Yes, he was too innocent to notice the danger of what he was doing. But he changed his mind, because that’s what the mind is for, to change... and he regretted his wrongs. He felt sorry. And he gave his life to save mine. As I’ve recently been informed, police concluded he was shot nine times while performing CPR on me. He was shot first as a warning, to stop. He didn’t stop. So he died. And thanks to that, I am here, and I am alive, because if he hadn’t done that... no doctor could’ve managed to bring me back. I would’ve been too long dead, in the depths of some river. So that was Sergeant Everett James Strike. He was a mess, he could be narcissistic, he could be too naive, he made some huge mistakes... but he always fought to get back in the right road. He gave amazing hugs, he had a lovely smile and a laugh that made his whole chest shake. He wanted to be a wonderful grandfather and a hero, he wanted to leave this world better than how he found it, and he made it. He’s the reason I was the good father I was. And above everything else... he was good, he was love, he was kindness, he was selflessness, and he was courage. He’s the reason my sister, myself, and our children, came into this world. And we’ll never be able to thank him enough.”

Lucy left a rose and a kiss on the casket before it was lowered into the ground and, as she turned to smile at Strike, he thought that she was cured.

 

 

 

 


	27. The bodyguard

After the funeral, Robin and Strike stayed behind to leave some flowers at Waverly and Charlotte’s graves too and they stood together on the grass, Robin hugging his arm. Strike enjoyed those moments the most, when it was just the two of them in silent understanding, comfortable with just being with each other. It only took them some minutes before they started walking around the cemetery, they feet making the grass crunch, neither of them sure of who had started walking, but neither of them was in a rush either. After several minutes, Robin interrupted the silence.

“The ocean doesn’t make you panic,” she commented.

“Meh,” Strike shrugged. “I don’t want to get in it though. I guess I can look at it, while looking at a glass of water is impossible. Curious, isn’t it?”

“Perhaps it’s because you were raised by the ocean, so maybe in your mind is a safe place, somehow.”

“Maybe.” Strike kissed the top of her head. “Thank you for coming here and doing all of this with me. You’re the cane keeping us all sane.”

“I wouldn’t have it any other way,” said Robin, smiling up at him. “Your speech was incredible, by the way.” Strike snorted a laugh.

“It was too long, I’m surprised there weren’t loud yawns.” Robin elbowed him playfully.

“It was beautiful! And every word... it was right, you know? I couldn’t have put things better. I think even Lucy found some sense in them. I think you cleared her mind out.”

“I’m glad if I did,” Strike shrugged. “My mum did the trick. Well, between her and you, actually. It’s just... sometimes we complicate ourselves too much, don’t we? And in the end things are way simpler.” Robin chuckled at him, their feet already walking outside the cemetery.

“Am I rubbing on you like the plague?” Robin joked. Strike giggled.

“You’re like a cold; I wasn’t looking for it but it’s damn nice to be in bed so much,” Robin laughed and they laughed together, walking down the road and into their car. As they laughed, Strike felt he was much lighter than when he had first woken up.

Strike drove without much of a hurry back to St. Mawes, following the steps of their family and friends, while Robin hummed the radio songs and kept a hand on his thigh. He felt strangely comfortable with it, not just because she was his girlfriend, but because it seemed as if they had always been like that.

Back at their mother’s house, Strike looked around for his sister, walking into a sitting room full of people, he only found his brother-in-law.

“She’s upstairs, with Jason. He was crying,” Greg explained, sitting with his elder sons and his mother, if Strike remembered correctly.

“Thanks,” Strike left the room and jogged upstairs. Right in front of his bedroom was Lucy’s, and after knocking on the door and hearing a ‘come in’, he entered the room. Lucy was on her bed, heels on the floor, sitting up in her long dark dress against a bunch of pillow with her 1-year-old son asleep in her arms, in his pyjamas. Lucy was examining a photo album while helping her son to sleep and for a moment Strike wasn’t sure what to do. The scene felt too tender for his enormous bulk of a person.

As if reading his mind, Lucy smiled at him and tapped on the bed, putting the album on the nightstand and moving Jason so he was more comfortable against her chest, readjusting her arms around him and kissing the top of his curly head. Strike noticed the window of the room was opened and he silently thanked his sister for liking her room to smell like the ocean at all times.

“How’s my namesake?” Strike asked softly, carefully flopping next to Lucy and trying not to disrupt his nephew, who was named Jason _Cormoran_ Keaton after him. Strike wasn’t sure what his sister had against the boy, but she seemed to absolutely love it, and he still remembered when he had entered the room to meet him at the hospital for the first time, and she had beamed showing the cheeky red face to him squealing ‘Jason Cormoran!’ all excited.

“He’s good, I think he skipped a nap and was rather tired,” said Lucy caressing Jason’s pink cheek. “How was the walk with Robin?”

“Oh, it was good. You know she’s always a wonderful company,” answered Strike sincerely. Lucy smiled.

“You’re pretty serious about her, aren’t you?” she asked sneaky. Strike shrugged.

“You know when you’re looking for houses and then one comes that just feels right? You can’t quite tell why, but it’s like... home. And you know it’s the one,” Lucy, who had moved thrice in her life, nodded with a small smile. “That’s how it is with Robin. She feels right. She fits with me like a perfect puzzle piece. I love her and... I’d love to be with her as long as I can.”

“Sweet... I think everyone likes her. She’s pretty great. And she knows how to deal with your need to eat a thousand pounds of food by hour.” She teased. Strike feigned offence.

“Hey! I only eat half what he does!” he pointed at Jason, chuckling. Lucy giggled.

“I’ve got to give you the reason at that, I birthed three piranhas and they aren’t even teenagers yet.”

“That’s going to be scary,” they giggled, fooling around. “So... how are you doing?” he elbowed her softly.

“I actually feel pretty great,” Lucy nodded. “It’s like I had a bunch of books disorganised in my brain, and what you said, which was wonderful, by the way... it helped put things back in place. I miss him but... I feel I got closure. I know he was a good man and even if he did some awful things... and I already heard what he did to you, by the way...”

“What?” Strike frowned lightly.

“Ilsa slipped by accident. She was having an angry rant, she was struggling to feel any affection with him lately too. But don’t worry, it’s fine, it actually helped me, knowing the full story... it made me realise... he got to extreme choices but... I think he only did it because otherwise someone else would’ve, and they would’ve hurt you worse. I think he loved you so much he’d rather hurt you himself in a controlled way than letting someone else cross the line. He was still a jackass, but then I heard your words and uh...” Lucy shrugged. “I guess we can’t forget the good years we had, right? It wouldn’t be fair. And well... everything you said. Everything. The more I heard you the more I felt it was how I felt too, that your words resonated with me. And as we were coming here I was talking with Ilsa and Nick and they agreed. Most people, actually.”

“Woah, I may have to become the new Martin Luther King,” Strike joked with modesty. Lucy chuckled and squeezed his arm softly.

“Are you going to be okay?” she asked with worried eyes. Strike looked at her intently, and after a moment, he nodded.

“I think so. Robin and I are going to move into somewhere nicer for the two of us, start over. She’s been talking about perhaps teaching psychology in University, and I think I want to be a stay-at-home boyfriend for a while. Perhaps be a security advisor. Don’t know. But we feel like just chilling into a calm life, you know?”

“Sounds good,” Lucy smiled at him. “I really do like that woman. Don’t let her go.”

“Don’t worry, I’m very good in bed and she’s appreciative.”

“Cormoran!” Lucy laughed, and his laugh united to hers in the air.

‘It’s easy’ he thought to himself. In the end, it was so much easier to laugh and put an arm around his sister and nephew and laugh life off, than to sink in his darkness. He was craving a fag and a bottle of champagne, but he knew he wasn’t going to have them, and actually, he felt fine with it. As he walked downstairs and observed how Robin was laughing loudly with Ilsa, Nick and Leda about something, he felt he had everything he needed already and that somehow, this time he wasn’t going to sink. After all, he was the bodyguard. And this time, he was going to guard himself properly.

 


End file.
